We built our kitchen out of a school bus

We met in a restaurant kitchen seventeen years ago. Gary was cooking, Ashley was front-of-house, and somewhere between the dinner rush and the clean-up shift, we figured out we were going to do this together.

In 2018 we bought a retired 40-seat school bus out of Lafayette, Colorado and spent the next 18 months gutting it down to the frame and building it back as a full commercial kitchen on wheels: welding, plumbing, wiring, the whole thing. We named it after the show Ashley loved as a kid, The Magic School Bus.

Then, right as we were ready to launch, the world shut down. March 2020 took both of the restaurant-management jobs we'd spent years building. So instead of waiting it out, we took a leap of faith and rolled the bus onto the road.

We started small: neighborhoods, bars, breweries, and wineries up and down the Front Range, squeezed in around our day jobs. Word got around fast. By September 2021 we'd left our restaurant careers behind for good and gone all-in on the bus. Tens of thousands of plates later, we still haven't looked back.

Gary trained at Johnson & Wales and learned high-end cooking under a chef from the Culinary Olympic team. We could be plating in a white-tablecloth dining room. We'd rather hand you a smashburger that tastes like we are.

The road hasn't always been smooth. The roof caved in during the build. The air brakes had to be rebuilt more than once. Every bit of it made us better at this, and surer of why we started.

In 2025 the bus found a permanent home inside Relish Food Hall & Pickleball in Louisville. You'll find us there every day now: smashburgers, crispy chicken, gyros, and a different special every week, with the bus parked out front. We still take it out for weddings, brewery events, and private parties across the Front Range. If you want the bus at your thing, we'd love to hear from you.