A genuine American school bus is now repurposed as a unique street-food purveyor here in Hungary’s capital. School Bus has mostly been parked at Budapest’s MOME campus after starting its journey here about a year ago – and since then, it has become much more popular than it must have been when picking up grumpy students standing by the roadside at the crack of dawn. The bright-yellow vendor offers classic American street foods, including burgers, quesadillas, and sandwiches, but its usual spot can also be nice for a coffee or a drink with friends. We climbed the hills of Buda to get on board.

When it comes to Budapest’s highly popular food trucks, the race is not about the speed of these vehicles, but about the uniqueness of the design and the foods they serve. Usually parked at the MOME campus, School Bus makes a pretty strong impression among most food trucks we see here in Hungary, as the sight of a classic yellow American school bus is not exactly something we encounter on an average day in Budapest.

The vehicle was brought to Hungary three years ago, and then it took many long months to get it ready; the moving-restaurant project started about a year ago.

Although the vehicle looks like an ordinary school bus from the outside, there’s an interior dining area (which mostly looks like a rockabilly bar) along with a kitchen inside. This is the place where the classic and reinvented street-food dishes are made; the menu includes hamburgers (chipotle cheeseburger – 990 HUF, bacon-BBQ burger – 1,090 HUF, vegaburger – 990 HUF), toasted sandwiches (cheese – 290 HUF, eggplant cream – 390 HUF, bacon-cheddar – 390 HUF, bacon-egg-cheddar – 490 HUF), salads, and tortilla-based treats (omelet wrap – 690 HUF, vega wrap – 790 HUF, pulled-pork wrap – 950 forints, quesadilla – 1,290 forints).

We tried the pulled-pork hamburger, which is made from a slowly cooked pork shoulder marinated in spicy BBQ sauce – this goes into a crunchy bun accompanied by coleslaw, which is a really satisfying combination. We heard that the toasted sandwiches are very popular among the students of MOME. Considering that a lot of students stop by, the School Bus crew tries to keep the prices as low as possible.

School Bus is not only available for students of
MOME: everyone can stop by between 8am and 8pm from Monday to Friday, and also from 11am to 4pm on Saturdays. The bus often participates in different events – recently it was a star attraction of Budapest’s Food Truck Show – and it will likely be spotted at various festivals around Hungary all summer long.

Address: Budapest 1121, Zugligeti út 9. (MOME “B” building)


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