Fox Pizza Bus Is Double-Decker Heaven | Los Angeles

Why would you retrofit a double-decker transit bus from Scotland with a wood-burning pizza oven?

"Why not?" was Mike Fox's answer to that question, and that harebrained plan, conceived in 2008, has finally come together in the form of the Fox Pizza Bus.

The bus had an aborted debut two years ago, when the unknown territory that is a mobile wood-burning oven generated a lot of question marks in the Health Department, and a series of temporary permits. Now, the giant red bus (click here to see a slide show) is fully legal and parks near Handsome Coffee Roasters on Tuesdays and Thursdays during lunch.

Fox worked at Lindy & Grundy while he and business partner Jordan Hieshetter navigated the permitting bureaucracy, and he brings a similar focus on local, sustainably raised ingredients to his mobile endeavor. Fox buys his meat from the Fairfax butchers, and his vegetable purveyors include some of the best farmers from the Hollywood and Santa Monica markets.

Those ingredients top pizzas ($9 to $12) made from Fox's tart dough, which crisps and blisters beautifully in his oak- and fruitwood-fueled fire. The dough is lily white, but there's a whole-grain secret hiding behind its well-developed flavor: a 100 percent whole-wheat sourdough starter. 

Fox Pizza Bus; twitter.com/foxpizzabus