Brooklyn Brewery Bus

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Stripping it Back

With only two weeks to take it from rusty school bus to sleekly branded bar-on-wheels, our first task was to build a giant marquee structure in our carpark to house the project. Once the tent was in place we got straight on to stripping and ripping out the bus interior, removing the upholstered seats and rotten timber floor. We also pulled out the panels, cabling, doors and fittings to take it back to just a metal shell. With the bus being a working school bus in Florida for over 21 years we were afraid of what we might find hidden beneath its murky brown leather interior. Luckily, we’re happy to report that our brave carpenters found nothing worse than the odd bit of chewing gum!

MAKE SOME SPACE

Raising the Roof

Our metal workers carried out substantial alterations to the roof to give extra head height and created a fold-down serving hatch on one side of the bus, all of which needed to stand up to the stresses of a summer-long tour of UK festivals and withstand whatever the British weather might bring.

WHAT A DIFERENCE

A Lick of Paint

With the bus stripped out and the roof and side panel altered, our next challenge was to carefully remove all the passenger windows so they could be restored to pristine condition. The window-less bus shell was then towed up the M1 to one of the country’s largest vehicle spray shops where the tired yellow bodywork was repaired, cleaned, primed and sprayed in super-sheen Brooklyn black.

Challenges

As with much of our work a tight deadline is often up there with the biggest of our challenges. For this project we had just two weeks to completely transform a rusty yellow American school bus into a fully functioning bar. The challenges this presents are usually around sourcing suppliers who can stop what they are doing at the drop of a hat and jump onto a project. Thankfully we have a great deal of fantastic connections who we’ve worked with over the years who will do just that.