diff --git a/garage.nix b/garage.nix
index bd2c38ed..b58738d7 100644
--- a/garage.nix
+++ b/garage.nix
@@ -172,8 +172,10 @@ in {
       path = [ cfg.package pkgs.perl pkgs.awscli ];
       script = ''
         set -xeuo pipefail
-        # give garage time to start up
-        sleep 10
+
+        # Give garage time to start up by waiting until somethings speaks HTTP
+        # behind localhost:3900.
+        until curl -sio /dev/null http://localhost:3900/; do sleep 1; done
 
         # XXX: this is very sensitive to being a single instance
         # (doing the bare minimum to get garage up and running)