In NYC's Rockaway Beach, a Story of Love, Faith and African Beignets
Babajide Alao didn’t start having doubts about his dream of opening a food cart serving West African food in his beloved Rockaway Beach community until he found himself thousands of miles away from home – with the aforementioned cart in his possession – but no easy way to get it back to New York.
“I flew to Oregon [to buy it], but driving back was not my intention. I was going to package it and have it shipped. But once I got to the shipping company, they said, ‘Your cart is fragile.’ And no one wanted to take that liability or that risk because of how delicate the cart is,” Alao, 26, told Inside Edition Digital. He knew that the cart was fragile, but it was the only one he’d found that was aligned with his vision for the project, which is why he traveled all the way to Oregon to purchase it.
But he wasn’t prepared for the suggestion the person who sold him the cart gave him to get it to New York: “[He] was like ‘Get a U-Haul truck and drive it back.’”