THE RIDE to getting her business on the road and thriving has been long and winding.
But Christina Mayers, owner of Christina’s Delights, is pleased that her idea of transforming a bus into a restaurant has finally come to fruition.
“This was an idea I have had for quite a while, before there were even mobile canteens in Barbados,” she said.
Her plan was first kicked into gear when she was a security officer at the Grantley Adams International Airport.
At Bay Street (behind London Bourne Towers), where she currently operates, Mayers told EASY that over the years she had seen a number of buses get “put down”.
After enquiring about their availability countless times, she said it seemed like no one was aware of what the future held for the permanently parked vehicles.
Then one day she spotted a notice on a bulletin board which advertised that a number of buses, including the Goshen Freightliner which she now owns, were up for sale.
The cook and pastry maker said she jumped on the opportunity and sent in her bid two days before the auction closed.
But she was later to lose hope because of what seemed like a sluggish response to her application.
When she finally received the approval letter she read hesitantly and with a defeatist attitude.
Mayers chuckled as she vividly recounted her actions that day. “I was called to the office at work where I picked up the letter. I went on to Chefette and I bought a piece of chicken and a drink.
“I sat down and said, ‘Let me see what this letter says, I doubt it’s anything good, anyway’. I skipped through the letter but when I saw the word ‘successful’ I wasn’t hungry anymore. I picked up the phone and I called my friend and I bid on the bus and I get it,” she said.
Though she did not disclose how much her bid was, she said it was “costly”.
But the journey did not stop there; it was still filled with bumps and major potholes. She said due to size of the bus it caused the wrecker truck to break down while transporting it to her home.
“Day after day I would sit down in here and decide where to put what, where to put this, where to put that. I would spend many days in here visualising,” she said.
