Double-decker ‘bustaurant’ serves up high-end cuisine

Upscale food trucks have been popping up all over the place for some time now, selling everything from wood-fired pizzas to Korean tacos to gourmet desserts. Now, make way for the double-decker bus, which entered the picture last month complete with a rooftop restaurant. Aiming to go well beyond the taco truck that’s so ubiquitous on the streets of LA, local entrepreneurs Travis Schmidt and Jason Freeman began with a vintage double-decker, and then spent six months adding a full kitchen downstairs and open-air seating on top. Now, what might well be America’s first “bustaurant” is officially called World Fare, a mobile restaurant that serves up a variety of high-end dishes from around the world. One favourite, for example, is the Bunny Chow, an originally South African street worker food that features a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with chicken curry, coconut milk, chick peas, cashews and cilantro. Also notable are World Fare’s house-made “drinks in a bag,” including strawberry basil lemonade. Like several of the recent contenders we’ve seen, World Fare keeps its fans updated via Twitter; weekly schedules are also posted online. As economic conditions declined in recent years, street vendors and low-cost curbside cuisine ascended; now, as prosperity begins to improve once again–albeit slowly–it makes perfect sense to see the mobile dining experience get upgraded once again. Foodie entrepreneurs around the world: time to hit the well-heeled streets with a double-decker bus of your very own? (Related: Foodie podcast highlights curbside cuisine — Coffee chariot caffeinates Copenhagen.) Spotted by: Jim Stewart