Jonathan Welch speaks to Pete Sonneveld, better known as the star of YouTube channel Pete And His Bus, about his unique bar bus business
Love them or hate them, they’re an icon. A vehicle type which far outlasted its brethren elsewhere and remained in service carrying fare-paying passengers into the 21st century as an anachronism in a modern city, the Routemaster attained cult status. And whilst that may have led to some 1,300 of the type surviving, there are two harsh realities to face. One is that they can’t all survive forever, and the other is that their iconic nature makes them ideal for a second life outside passenger transport. If anything, the second might help overcome the first.
One person doing exactly that is Pete Sonneveld, who has built up a successful ‘bar bus’ business using former London Routemaster RML 2355, which he has converted to a bar and serving space on the lower deck, and casual seating upstairs, complete with opening roof. So successful has been his venture that he’s working on a second conversion; though fear not, for Pete is also very much a classic vehicle enthusiast, and far from destroying what enthusiasts might see as a valuable preserved bus, he is taking care to ensure that the buses remain as close to original as possible, and that any modifications are easily un-doable in future should it be required.
Much of the restoration and conversion work on his second bus, RML 2730, has been documented on his popular YouTube channel, Pete And His Bus, where his monthly updates show his progress, as well as some of the events he and RML 2355 have attended and what goes on behind the scenes.
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To find out more about Pete’s story, CBW caught up with him at the East Sussex barn which houses the two Routemasters, as well as a collection of other classic and interesting vehicles, and where most of the hard work to convert the buses has been carried out.
Most prominent was RML 2355, which has been on the events circuit for a number of years, and is available for brand launches, corporate events, and any other special occasion that might require something that stands out. With its top-deck VIP seating area, which can seat more than 25 people, and a 14-foot sunroof, it certainly does that. And in addition to the usual Routemaster spec, it can also also boast a well equipped bar on the lower deck with 12 draught taps, multiple fridges, spirit racks and plenty of counter space for serving the crowds at big events.
Second bus first
After a warm welcome at Pete’s YouTube-famous barn, our conversation was naturally first drawn to Pete’s current project, RML 2730, which as viewers of his channel will know is part way through an interior refit and external renovation to provide his business with a second bus.
“I used to also run a café,” Pete explained, and one day an elderly lady came in and said she’d seen a bus just like mine. She showed me a picture on her phone. It was sat in a pub car park looking dirty and covered in moss. I didn’t know if it was for sale, but she said she’d already asked and gave me the owner’s number.
“It had been bought for a radio station as a mobile studio, but in the end they didn’t need it. Then it was almost sold to the owner of a used car showroom, who offered £15,000 for it, but it was owned by 6 people, and they didn’t want to accept the offer. £15,000 doesn’t divide by six!
“I offered £18,000 – which does divide neatly by six! – and they accepted. At that time, the price of Routemasters was going through the roof. One had recently sold for £70,000 at auction, so I happily shook their hand.
“That actually happened quite a long time before the first video I made. I’d owned it for two years at that point, but the owner of the pub where it was parked was about to change, and the new owner wanted it gone. I was still finishing 2355 when I bought it, so we parked it here on the farm.
“I gave the lady who found it free cups of tea from then on, of course!”
Although it’s not a restoration in the classic sense, anyone who has restored a classic bus will appreciate how much work is involved; and just because this is a business, that doesn’t mean Pete has an army of staff helping out. He has done most of the work on 2730 and 2355 himself, aided by Routemaster expert Tim Barrington when it comes to the more mechanical bits.
The beginning
So how did it all start? “I’m originally from Holland,” Pete explained, “I was born and raised there until I was 13. My parents are musicians, and my dad moved us to England so he could start teaching the violin – private lessons aren’t really a thing in Holland like they are here.
“It was a bold move for us. I didn’t do very well at school. I left with no GCSEs. I ended up at drama school in Lewes, and then at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford.
“The start of my obsession with classic vehicles was when I was around nine years old. A neighbour had a Fiat 500, and I wanted one. I dreamt of owning one, like children do. My mum actually rang the Dutch Fiat 500 owners club, and they made me a member even though I didn’t own one. I thought that was the best thing ever.”
Pete did eventually realise his dream, 20 years later, and among his current collection is a Fiat 500 although as his viewers will be aware, that’s far from the smallest vehicle he owns. That honour falls to channel ‘co-host’ Compo, a 1980s-vintage Honda Motocompo folding scooter; in this case, one with a rather cheeky personality!
Alongside his education, Pete explained that he worked in catering, and after finishing at the music academy went on tour with a number of metal bands. “I really enjoyed it, but I realised that if I wanted to own nice classic cars, I needed to do something else,” he said.
That something else turned out to be a local café, located in a former coal merchant’s office in what had been a railway goods yard and now surrounded by a modern industrial estate. The café wasn’t doing well, but as Pete explained, it had a large car park. That gave him an idea, and he took over the café and organised the first of what would grow to be very successful classic car meets, bringing in much-needed income for the café.
“That grew to the point where we had over 200 cars and were turning people away,” he explained. “The first meeting had about nine cars, mostly friends. One guy turned up with an Aston Martin DB4, and I just new it was going to work. The café had a queue down the road.”
Buying a bus
So how did this lead to buying a bus? “I got fed up of spending so much money on rates, bills, rent,” Pete said. “That’s why high streets are failing. Everyone’s getting squeezed. I was making money, but working six days a week and with a long commute. After six and a half years, it had reached its peak. I sold the business; the lady who took it over is still there, and the classic car club is run by a mate. It’s nice to just be able to walk around the car shows now.”
Those years had given Pete a number of things; the impetus to invest in a more mobile venue, but also great experience of running events, something which is proving an increasingly important part of his business.
“I was already staring to build the bus – 2355 – in the background. My dad lent me the money to buy it. My parents have been super supportive. Its first outing was on 15 August 2015 after a year and a half of building. When I bought it, I knew nothing about Routemasters. I knew what one was, but didn’t even know that this was a long version, with the extra window.
“It took me a year and a half to build, including the time to find the bus. Classic buses seem to be sold very ‘in house.’ People want to vet you and figure out what you’ll do with it. The first few people I saw said ‘sorry, it’s not for sale to you’ when I told them what I wanted it for. When I found 2355, I said I was going to use it for weddings.
“When I did the build, I was very mindful to keep it as original as possible. It could be turned back into a bus in a couple of weeks. Even the sunroof has been fitted in a way that it could easily be removed again and replaced with solid panels. My background is classic cars, remember, so I understand the attachment to vehicles like these.
“Nostalgia is very powerful. I get it. Especially with buses. For people without a driving licence, buses were a ticket to freedom. They were a way of getting out and discovering the world. That’s why I’ve kept it as original as possible.
“Having grown up abroad, London was always so exciting to me. I have vivid memories of the buses, I know how important they are. It’s ironic that the lack of investment in new buses created a cultural icon, though by the 1990s most of them were looking pretty dire. There are something like 1,300 Routemasters still in existence. The really important ones are guaranteed a safe future.”
Bumpy start
In his first year, Pete and his bus had just three bookings, including one which he described as ‘completely disastrous.’ By that point, he’d spent over £60,000 getting the bus ready to go. A £1,800 bill to sort an injector pump fault on top made him question whether he’d done the right thing. But there was some good news to come. The local East Grinstead Courier newspaper offered to do a feature on him.
“I barely made any effort,” Pete said. “It could have been amazing.” Nonetheless, his story was picked up by national newspaper Metro and also by light entertainment and news site LadBible. “I was on radio shows too,” he continued. “It was one of those feel-good stories. ‘Guy fed up with day job converts bus to bar.’
“The phone started ringing, and emails started coming in. The press coverage didn’t spin much business by itself, but the phone was ringing more often as when people searched online for ‘bar bus’ I was appearing in the searches. I haven’t looked back since, although every year in March the panic sets in when I look at the season ahead. Lots of events are booked at the last minute. Sometimes I wonder if people have fallen out of love with the Routemaster, and the the phone rings.
“I bought the second before I’d even finished the first, but as one guy told me: ‘you’re opening a bar in the UK. You’ll be fine!’ and I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years now.”
Corporate events
“My first big corporate event was a tour for Carlsberg,” Pete recalled. “I remember wondering how much you even charge for something like that. I had no idea. I asked some contacts how they worked out their rates. It’s so niche that it’s quite expensive, but Carlsberg just said ‘OK.’
“Suddenly, I was driving round the country in my own bar bus and being paid for it. I worked out how many bacon sandwiches I’d have needed to sell at the café to make the same money. I even did some stuff with Top Gear; that’s when I had the Pete And His Bus side adverts made. They wanted a less shouty advert, but I told them no, it was the only one I had!”
Other TV gigs included at Newmarket Races, where ITV used the bus as a location for interviews, and a staff party for Adobe where the budget extended to recreating corners of major world cities in one huge hall, including San Francisco and an Alpine village. Not every event has proved a success, though, and Pete was badly stung by a bogus events company which booked him for a series of six events at Brands Hatch.
“One of my favourite jobs was a tour of universities for Parker pens to promote its non-smudge ink for notes, exams and the like, and to reach out to a younger audience for its brand. It was also nice because I didn’t have to run a bar, and the company I worked with, Ghost, were lovely people.
“One of the craziest was probably last year for the coronation. Horsham Town Council closed the town centre for the celebrations. The weather forecast was poor. They said I could turn up and run a bar, and they wouldn’t charge. They just wanted a guarantee I’d turn up.
“It was early in the year, and I didn’t have much else on, so I said yes. I expected the weekend would be a damp squib. An hour in, we had three queues already, and were staring to run out of stock by 2 o’clock. The event was on until 10pm, and there were only three staff. I quickly made a trip to the wholesalers, and then another.
“There was such a great mood. I paid the staff double; we’d taken over £10,000.”
Stay tuned for part two next week, when we discuss some of Pete’s other bus-related ventures as well as his YouTube channel, and some of the legalities around this kind of operation.
Visit Pete’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/c/peteandhisbus and see CBW’s own YouTube channel for a special video update.
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