Let the number of burgers be x and the number of hot dogs be y.
The question gives that the total number of items sold is 88. This can be written to be:

The cost of a burger is $4.50 while that of hot dogs is $3.25. If the total sold price is $331, we can express this as:

This gives us a pair of equations we can solve simultaneously:

To solve by substitution, make x the subject of the formula in equation (1):

Substitute the value of x into the second equation:

To find x, we can substitute the value of y into equation (3):

ANSWER:
The correct option is OPTION C: The food truck sold 36 burgers and 52 hot dogs.