Downtown Saskatoon's Bus Stop Refreshments opens for season

Saskatoon’s original food truck is back open for business.

Bus Stop Refreshments, permanently parked across the street from the Delta Bessborough, turned on its red and blue neon open sign Wednesday.

Owner Laurel Beaumont said the bus will stay open for the season, with some exception.

“If the weather goes to snow, I may put a snow day sign up. But once I open, I’m open right until October,” Beaumont said.
 
The iconic red double-decker bus has become a Saskatoon summertime tradition, dating back nearly three decades.

“It was an idea way back in the middle of the 80’s, about just having a place to buy takeout food in downtown Saskatoon,” Beaumont said.

“I was living downtown at the time and there was nothing available, so this was the perfect spot.”

She came across an old double decker bus a restaurant owner had used as part of a promotion and no longer wanted.

“We found it in the auto trader, actually it was for sale out of Regina,” Beaumont said. “We scraped together what we could and he accepted our offer.”

She drove the bus to her parents’ farm in Hanley, did the renovations and, as she says, “went from there.”