When it comes to catching a quick bite on the North Shore stretch between Flatts and Hamilton, there are not many choices.

Victoria and Toney Edmonds, of the catering business Simple, want to fill the void.

The couple have taken over food operations at Rubis Terceira’s petrol station at 2 North Shore Road, Smith’s, offering everything from sushi to snacks, pastries and a buffet.

“So far, things are going well,” Mrs Edmonds told The Royal Gazette. “We have seen people coming from as far away as St David’s and St George’s to get our fried fish.”

The Edmonds have been providing homemade food to people on the go for eight years, but the business has had its challenges.

“We make everything from scratch, every single day, and the cost of every ingredient on the baking side has increased,” Mrs Edmonds said. “That is from milk to eggs to sugar to flour, butter, vanilla and cinnamon.”

Things are not much better on the cooking side, with multiple price hikes for meat, vegetables and carbohydrates.

She said the cost of certain foods such as coffee and sugar — staples in a filling station eatery — have increased by as much as 35 per cent.

“We cannot pass that all on to the customer,” she said. “We put prices up once a year. We do that in December knowing that five or six months down the line we are going to have to eat price hikes.”

Despite these challenges, they continue to grow and expand.

“People want to know that what they are eating does not have a lot of preservatives in it,” she said.

Simple started with just the two of them. Today they have 13 staff members. They run the food at Rubis Terceira’s in Warwick and also operate the Azu Beastro at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo.

The Edmonds started out largely concentrating on food for people with special dietary needs. Today, although they have sugar-free and gluten-free options, not all of their food could be labelled “healthy”.

“Sometimes people don’t want to eat healthy all the time,” she said. “One of our customer favourites is the macaroni made by our Bermudian chef Danielle Paynter,” Mrs Edmonds said.

About 30 per cent of Simple’s staff are Bermudian.

Simple started running a new grill and smoker last week.

“The buffet sold out within 2½ hours,” she said. “That will become a more regular thing at the Warwick location. The baked goods are also popular. We have a speciality chef who makes them.”

Mrs Edmonds thanked petrol station owners the Terceiras for supporting them from the beginning.

In 2021, the Edmonds took over food operations at the Warwick Rubis from Ice Queen.

“Ice Queen was a larger company with much more experience than we had, at that time,” she said. “We want to thank the Terceiras for their faith in our product when we were the new guys. Since then, we have had a great partnership with them.”

Mr Edmonds works full time in the business.

“I joke that I work with him between midnight and 2am and he does everything else,” Mrs Edmonds said. “Like any other family-owned entrepreneur, he never sleeps. He is always working.”

At the petrol station on the North Shore, the couple are starting with breakfast and lunch, running from 6am to 4pm.

“We may add dinner depending on interest,” she said.