Recently rolling into the Budapest street-food craze, three cute little carts customized to resemble Budapest’s buses, trolleys, and trams can now be discovered out and about citywide selling a new type of locally created street food. Their product is a bagel-like bread ring filled with various ingredients, and for now these tasty treats are proffered for less than the cost of a single public-transport ticket. We caught up with the guys of Budapest Bakering in the city center and asked them what this is all about.
The seemingly endless street food revolution is inspiring creative new initiatives that are becoming more evocative of actual Budapest icons, whether referring to the food itself or the channels used to sell it. The latest craze here is called Budapest Bakering, and the company is immediately eye-catching with their three pushcarts designed to resemble the city’s public-transportation vehicles – but instead of passengers, they carry a new kind of street food. Budapest Bakering creates and sells bagel-like bread rings with all kinds of fillings baked into them. The selection is rather varied; when we visited, we could choose from rings filled with ham, dried plum, and goat cheese. Customers can share their ideas on their website as well, and if a certain proposal becomes popular enough, they make it happen.
Their business model seems destined for success: Budapest Bakering offers an original product from a unique setting, and all for a very good price – for the time being, all types of bread rolls cost only 300 forints. They took virtually everything that is considered cool in street food these days and mashed these elements together to create something new. They definitely deserve a round of applause, especially because they managed to convince the city government to issue them a special permit allowing them to move around while selling their products.
So how does it work? Those who would like to buy some Budapest Bakering bread rings have several options. Option A: walk around aimlessly in the city and hope to stumble upon the buffet carts. Option B: check where the guys are on the online platform and go there. Option C: if many people would like to buy from Bakering, and push the “magnetize” button, the cart of their choice will come around. Option D: have the chosen products sent to you with the company’s courier. The online interface (which does not work all that well at this point) is very thorough: anyone can view the available sandwiches by clicking on the carts.
By the way, they are “open” from 7 in the morning, and sell rings for as long as they’re still aboard. For now, Budapest Bakering targets the inner part of District VII, but as soon as they get additional permits, they will expand their range.
The project is definitely an excellent idea, the product is nice, and the enthusiasm is understandable, seeing that the carts would do just fine even in a circus: there are almost no customers who do not take a picture of the vehicle before buying something. We hope that this business will expand to become as much a part of our everyday life in Budapest as the buses, trolleys, and trams that inspired them.
