Arushi Singh and Tejas Singh, Co-ideators, Food Bus Of India, recently joined NewsX for an insightful chat as part of our special series NewsX India A List. In the exclusive interview, the duo opened about running a double decker food bus in Delhi.
Giving us an insight about Food Bus Of India, Arushi said, “Food Bus Of India, as the name suggests, is a very novel concept that we brought in to Delhi. We are providing you the best experience, a novel experience of dining within a double decker.” When asked where we all can find their best dining experience, Arushi responded, “Our bus is placed at Rajendra place, right outside of metro’s gate no. 2. It doesn’t move, it is in a fixed place but it is the whole experience of being in a double decker.”
Narrating his experience of ideating the Food Bus Of India, Tejas shared, “In Delhi, we always used to go out every week for dining, to eat in fancy restaurants. We always check out the interior, food, ambience, everything and try to analyse how much effort the person put in setting up the restaurant. In Delhi, we saw that most of the restaurants were getting shut or having trouble because of having the initial investments they put into the space, creating the space, paying the rents or purchasing the land. The basic model started in our head where we thought of a way to try and overcome these obstacles, to try to learn something that is not bound by space or bound by these things that all the other restaurants that are bound by a space or the work you get done in the space. If you move out, then you have to start all over again.”
“And this is how this concept started. We created a temporary structure that we can even move around and what is better than a bus. We have a co-founder of a bus and his son actually started in London. When both of us got together, he came up with the idea that we can come with a double decker bus. It all just fit together because of the two floors. The kitchen can be downstairs , sitting can be upstairs, so it all worked out very smoothly. That was just till the ideation. When the whole process started, then the nightmare started. It almost took a year to get the basic structure going,” he added.
When asked about the challenges they faced, Tejas said, “Transportation was the major challenge because we created the bus at an offside location of Delhi because of the pandemic. We had to regularly go there to check the progress. Since most of the labour was unavailable during those days, it added a lot to our time frame. The whole economic model that we had set up was a major challenge that we faced. Even today, with Covid slowly clearing up, we can see that the response is getting a little better. What we are trying to achieve is that we are providing them a safer experience rather than eating on the street. We try to get them to eat in a clean environment, an air conditioned environment, so that they don’t have to exposed to the weather and be directly exposed to the virus in an outdoor situation.”
Talking about the experience of putting together a double-decker bus in Delhi, Arushi said, “ The concept was actually driven by the fascination to bring something that the people had not seen in Delhi. Our plan is to dot the entire city with this bus, so that a commoner can experience that they cannot otherwise. I think the making of the bus is the great deal because nothing like this has been made before in Delhi. The architect of the bus made it from scratch, It is an actual real bus made from scratch and not something that has been modified.”