Fast food from a slow boat?

I was intrigued to read about a novel pizza takeout business in the Virgin Islands.

One couple decided to quit the rat race to live the ultimate dream - to open a pizza boat in the stunning Caribbean ocean.

What's more, the quirky eatery has gained an army of fans who have rated it as the top restaurant in the area.

If that wasn't good enough, pizza lovers Tara and Sasha Bouis, originally from Indiana and Manhattan respectively, even do deliveries.

The married couple had a dream to combine their love for sailing with delicious pizza after they were paired together to work on a yacht

Their tasty offerings are served in the eye-catching location of St Thomas, where boats can moor up alongside the floating pizzeria for a meal.

'We’d never heard of a food boat before we built one, and every day we are blown away by the fact that people kept showing up to eat our pizza,' said Tara, 32, who used to be a scuba diving teacher.

The ingenious boat, named Pizza Pi, has been selling pizzas in the area since 2014, but the idea was born years before.

The ocean-loving couple started dating when they were assigned the same yacht to work on.

The idea of combining a love of sailing with pizza came from the adventurers returning from a spell at sea, exhausted and desperate for food.

They were moored at St Thomas watching a spectacular sunset, and thought that the only way the scenario could have been improved was with a delicious slice of pizza.

And it wasn't just a pipe dream - Sasha had experience working as a captain and Tara as the chef. All they needed was a vessel to bring the fantasy to life.

'Food trucks were starting to catch on the mainland US and we thought it could work on the water just as well as it does on land,' Tara said. 

'Our search for the perfect hull still came up empty after three years of crawling through boat yards.

'One day, we went to our good friend Kevin Gray (known lover of derelict boats) to ask him to keep an eye out for our perfect boat. Little did we know, we were sitting on the bow of what would become Pizza Pi.'

The boat was the perfect size and shape for installing a commercial-grade pizza kitchen but renovating it would take two years.

Thankfully Sasha was an engineer by trade - and YouTube was on hand to help with anything they didn't know.

In 2014 Pizza Pi became a reality, officially providing pizza to any boater in the US Virgin Islands who wanted to stop for a tasty meal.

There's more at the link.

I think that's just great!  A couple get together, build a new life away from the rat race, and find a novel way to make a living, all the while providing a very real service for which sailors will be very grateful.  I've crewed aboard small yachts a few times, and one of the biggest headaches is sometimes finding the energy (not to mention the supplies!) to cook after a hard day's sailing.  To be able to send a dinghy over and come back with pizza . . . that's a real blessing.

(If you want to learn more, they have a Web site.)

Peter