CO: Red double-decker bus brings Hong Kong flair, coffee and pizza to Lakewood

Two young girls pressed their faces against the windows on the second level of a red, British-style double-decker bus that serves as an unusual coffee shop in Lakewood.

But the bus, which is too tall to drive and has some of its electrical equipment clipped, wasn’t headed anywhere: Its driver is a giant stuffed teddy bear who sits buckled into the driver’s seat. Instead, the girls were joined on board by their parents who sat in one of the booths to drink their coffee.

Alice Choi, who opened Red Bus Coffee in November, got the idea for the setup from her father, Ricky Choi, who grew up in Hong Kong, where the double-decker bus was introduced during the British Empire’s lengthy rule of the region, and where it remains a mode of public transportation. So she commissioned a functioning bus to be built “from the ground up.”

It was manufactured from different parts in Asia, complete with an engine, and was shipped by boat to California. After that, it took four days to transfer by truck to Denver because of its height. Once there, Choi and her family remodeled the interior, Alice said.

Her original goal was to drive the bus and set up shop in the mountains. She learned she’d risk running into utility poles and be unable to drive through mountain tunnels, however, halting the idea.

Instead, Choi and her parents opened a pizza shop, Metro Pie Pizza, in the storefront next to where the bus is parked, at 890 Wadsworth Blvd., close to an Interstate 70 on-ramp. It came online this month.

Together, Choi refers to the two businesses as Red Line Station. Her parents run Metro Pie, while Alice serves coffee through a window on the first floor of the bus. The long list of drinks also includes lemonades and dirty sodas. It also sells breakfast pastries and croissant sandwiches.

Metro Pie Pizza has seven 12-inch pizza creations (all but one are $13.89) that are large enough for two and include some classic combos, like sausage and hot honey, and Canadian bacon and pineapple.

But the Choi family’s signature pie is the Kowloon Express (named for one of the three main areas in Hong Kong) and is similar to a style of pizza in Hong Kong, Alice said. It combines shredded, grilled chicken, mozzarella and green onions served over a Chinese sweet bean sauce known as tian mian jiang instead of tomato sauce.

While the pizzas are a little different for Choi’s father and her mother, Anna, the restaurant industry isn’t. They have decades of experience owning restaurants in Wisconsin, where Alice was born, and in Colorado, including Purple Ginger Asian Fusion in Lakewood and Sidewok Cafe in west Denver.

“They have tons of experience with Chinese food, to be honest, but this is their first adventure doing something a little different,” Alice said. Her father decided to stave off retirement and support her first foray into the food industry.

Red Bus Coffee opens at 5 a.m., while Metro Pie Pizza opens for lunch at 11 a.m. and stays open until 9:30 p.m. on weeknights. The grand opening of the pizza shop is Saturday, Feb. 21.

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