Skool Beans

A 1kg roaster behind the bus counter

The coffee bus in Vík, on Iceland’s south coast, roasts on site, works as a tea lab and hot-chocolate counter, and keeps its bar inside a retro school bus. This is not a big-room café translated into a vehicle; the bus is the room, the counter, the heat source and the point of the stop.

The programme begins with roasting rather than brewing. The founder started the coffee side on a 250g air roaster, then moved up to a 1kg roaster after selling coffee-card vouchers to fund the change. That scale explains the feeling of the place: small batches, a close read on what is being served, and enough room for coffees to change without turning the counter into a lecture. In busy stretches a trusted team helps with the roasting; when time allows, unusual beans come through as cameos. The house does not build its identity around named farms or fixed origins. It builds it around making coffee in the same place it serves it, and it took a European Coffee Trip country win in 2025 for doing so.

The bar, the stove and the book shelf

Counter service suits the bus. Order, wait close to the bar, then take the seat that fits the hour: by the windows for the passing road, nearer the log-burning stove when the weather has done its usual work, or outside when Vík gives you one of its easier days. The inside keeps the school-bus memory visible, with wood, soft light and the practical warmth of the stove rather than café gloss.

There is a free book exchange, which matters more than it sounds. It tells you the pace the room is built for. This is a stop where people linger after the pull, not a hatch designed only to move a queue. A resident cat has become part of the room’s grammar too, and staff are used to managing that gently for guests who need distance.

Order the Dragon’s Breath first

First order is Dragon’s Breath, a white hot chocolate with dragon fruit and cayenne pepper, finished with cream, edible flowers and coconut flakes. It says more about the bus than a plain espresso would, because it sits exactly where Skool Beans works well: warm drink, playful build, cold-climate comfort, and enough spice to keep it from being soft.

If chocolate is not the mood, the classic, chilli-infused and mint hot chocolates are the next lane to follow. Coffee drinkers should stay with the house-roasted options and take whatever is on the counter that day, since the roasting scale favours change. For food, a bagel is the savoury choice beside the cup, and the sweeter case runs to muffins and pastries, kept as an accompaniment rather than a meal. Local crafts sit around the same small retail world, another sign that the bus is meant to be used slowly.