Avid foodie and entrepreneur Hezron Louw's five-year start-up journey of his gourmet street food catering company, Sumting Fresh, is beginning to pay dividends.

The roots of the venture can be traced back to a chance meeting with Andrew Leeuw, who is now his business partner and Sumting Fresh co-owner, in a taxi to college.

Louw, 34, a banking analyst by profession, said the conversation with Leeuw escalated to their shared passion for everything culinary.

They have now made inroads into the highly competitive restaurant and food market space in a remarkable way, turning a double-decker bus into an innovative 34-seater mobile restaurant .

Even when they were at their respective jobs (Leeuw is a trained chef), the passion to launch the business became their preoccupation, leading the start-up taking off in 2012.

"We've been driven by our love for food and shared interest in American street food style, such as grills and fries. We had to put together a total of R60000 to start the business. We used our retirement funds and borrowed from family members and friends."

The mobile restaurant, influenced by food stalls in the American South and Hong Kong, caters for patrons at food festivals in Gauteng, including the annual DStv Delicious International Food & Music Festival, the Oppikoppi Festival and the Soweto Food Festival, among others.

On weekends, Louw moves to market stalls, where Sumting Fresh first opened, dishing out meals at Fourways Farmers Market in the north of Joburg and the Neighbourgoods Market in Braamfontein. Chicken dishes and specialities dominate the small menu of the street food outlet, while they also have a small restaurant in Norwood. The main prep kitchen is in Bramley, in the north of Jozi.

You can wash down your meal with a watermelon crush or elderflower soda.

"We also do corporate gigs, end-of-the-year events, private functions, but our main attraction is the 'bustaurant', where we do takeaways and serve sit-in customers as well."

Louw, famous for being on the SABC3's Top Chef SA competition and braai food show Tyres and Braaiers with comedian Nik Rabinowitz, believes his biggest selling point is the friendliness of staff.

"We sing to customers ... One of the attractions is that we use fresh produce; we go to the veggies market and farms after every two days."

Sumting Fresh has a staff compliment of 24 full-time employees and 26 part-time staffers. Louw said when doing functions they can hire up to 50 people for an event.

Louw's outlook for the future is to turn the company into a franchise in the next few years, getting more mobile restaurants and growing Sumting Fresh to become a national brand.