Skip to main content

Speakeasy dishes up Italian food in vintage bus -- in secret -- in East Bay

Restaurant confidential:
"Locked behind a razor-wire fence, hidden deep within an East Bay industrial zone, lies a secret restaurant where patrons need a golden key.

Part diner, part speakeasy, Joe's 'Bustaurant' is an underground boite the Sicilian chef has operated inside a converted 1947 Metro bus for the last six years. You have to know somebody who knows somebody to get in.

Joe serves traditional Italian food under the cover of darkness, on Monday nights during winter, to elude busybodies, food snobs and health inspectors.

'This is the kind of place where you walk in, and everyone says hello,' said 41-year-old Joe, a musician who prepares about 35 meals a night. 'In here, that's what it feels like you should do.'

Joe couldn't operate legally if he wanted to -- there's no fire or health department around that would allow a chef to cook inside a bus on a gas range with people crammed around five tables. He's checked into it.

'The ceiling is too low, the exits are too narrow. The walls are too thin, ' Joe said. 'I'd have to rip it apart and turn it into something it's not. It would no longer be an antique bus.'

Regulations aside, he must be doing something right, because no one has complained, and the lines are getting longer and longer for a seat on the bus.

Joe has passed out about 40 golden keys to neighbors and friends, who each are allowed to bring somebody if they call first and make a reservation. His six-degrees-of-separation system netted actor Cheech Marin, who is the most famous person to dine at Joe's."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings : "BallDroppings is an addicting and noisy play-toy. It can also be seen as an emergence game. My brother Marc takes this software seriously as an audio-visual performance instrument. Balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines you are drawing with the mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line."

W Ketchup™

W Ketchup™ : "You don’t support Democrats. Why should your ketchup? W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA. In side-by-side taste tests of five leading brands, we found that W Ketchup is second to none. You'll never go back to Heinz again! W Ketchup is America’s Ketchup™"