Out of all the jobs that I've ever had in my life, not one of them was a coffee shop job.
My vision is always, what is an experience that I can create for somebody else?
I've gone to a coffee trailer and I loved the experience, but I want to make that experience.
Other people do it, so why can't I?
My name is Avery Ann Stutz.
I am 28 years old.
I'm from Memphis Tennessee, and I bought an Airstream trailer for 6000, turned it into a coffee trailer and we made over 500000 in the first year.
The name and the energy behind Byway Coffee Company is coffee worth chasing around town.
It's not just your everyday cup of coffee.
We park all over the city.
We are open seven days a week.
We can be at the park.
We can be at your school.
We can be in the neighborhood.
We have all different flavors.
We have a new menu every month.
Our most popular drink by far is our ube vanilla cold foam latte, which is one of the only drinks that is a year round coffee drink for us.
Byway has always been profitable since day one.
Our profit margin ranges between 20% and 26%.
Of course, we've got our cost of goods sold.
Coffee's a very expensive thing to purchase.
We're always investing in new ingredients to test and to try.
We're constantly buying cups.
There are 75,000 cups at a time.
But our operating expenses are quite low.
We don't necessarily pay for electricity.
We don't pay for rent.
We really only use about 25 worth of gas every single day and we only use about 15 to 20 worth of ice for the day.
The first few months the revenue was 11000 to 18000 and we've had several 30 to 40 to 50000 months since then.
I projected that we were gonna make like $150,000 in an entire year.
We four times, five times that amount in the first year.
This is not a typical barista job.
It's a lot of physical labor and that's something that I warn all my baristas of.
Typically we open at 7 a.m. during the week.
The driver typically arrives about an hour before that to pick up the ice for the day, hook up the trailer.
Social media has been the catalyst for this business.
Every single Sunday we post our schedule for the entire week, drive it there, we park it.
A lot of times the road is uneven, and so we use these building blocks that will help us level the trailer so that all of our espresso isn't sliding down, or our milk jugs will sometimes slide down the countertop.
We restock the trailer with one day's worth of you name it milk pastries syrup agave matcha, espresso beans.
We have to make fresh cold foam in the morning.
We have to make fresh matcha batches in the morning.
Setting up all of the pastries dialing in the espresso.
Our friends at Comeback Coffee, Hayes and Amy.
They were encouraging me along the way and they also eventually became a resource, because they are who I purchase all of our coffee beans from.
And the fact that it is roasted here in Memphis, Tennessee is also super special.
We open the windows at seven and typically by then there's about five or six, maybe 10 people in line.
You can just walk up to the window.
We've got our menu that's hanging there.
We've got our pastries on display.
Typically we've got three people on the trailer.
One person's taking orders, one person's pulling espresso shots and one person is finishing orders and sending them out the window.
Having a trailer is extremely different than a brick and mortar.
I think that there's not one better than the other.
There are so many things that go into it.
We have to have extra insurance.
If you think about it, I'm the one driving the trailer and then I also have other drivers, because I can't be there every single day, 365 days.
We've made almost every mistake at least once.
There have been days where we run out of milk really early on because we have no idea the amount of people that are going to show up.
I've spilled multiple cold foam containers, like quarts of cold foam have just sprawled because the fridge wasn't locked.
A lot of our like emergencies that we've had.
Like that, I have a really great support system around me that has helped pick up the pieces.
The Airstream coffee trailer is actually my fourth business that I own.
I also am a destination wedding photographer.
I also own a photo studio in downtown Memphis, and then I also own a mobile cocktail trailer.
I did grow up in a family where both my parents were entrepreneurs.
My uncle is currently my business partner for Byway Coffee, which is an incredible full circle moment, since he is the one who championed me and bought my first camera for me when I was 16 years old.
We pull it up to parties, weddings, private events.
We serve craft cocktails, beer, and wine.
And I was, you know, still shooting weddings and traveling full time.
I mean, I was traveling every single weekend.
I was just starting to get kind of burnt out being on the go all the time.
Come February, my uncle called me and I was like, you know, I bought this Airstream.
I think I'm gonna need more money upfront than I have in the past.
And he was like, what if I give you a loan or an investment and then we can work together on this?
So we hung up the phone and I screamed.
I mean, I freaked out.
I was like, maybe this could actually happen.
I ended up going in and demolitioning the entire thing by myself.
I ripped out the toilet.
I ripped out the shower.
I ripped out the gas.
There was a bed and a closet and a stove.
So I got in there with a hammer and brought it down to the bones.
It was basically an open floor plan, but it's only 25 and a half feet long, eight feet, Why?
Like it is just not a large space whatsoever.
And honestly.
I recruited a few of my friends here in the coffee industry to tell me like a knock box goes in front of the grinder and the trash can needs to be right here.
Cause I don't know the general flow of a coffee shop custom countertops, custom display window that we have in the trailer that displays all of our pastries.
Three refrigerators and a freezer, drip machine and our drip grinder and then we have a really big ice bin as well.
I have some coffee friends here in Memphis.
They came in and they did a one hour intensive with me on the espresso machine, showing me how to turn it on, showing me how to tamp an espresso puck, showing me how to fill the grinder.
We had increased to seven days a week, about three to four months into the business.
At that point I began to train my manager on driving and getting some help for stocking and driving and doing all of the more laborious tasks.
The day of our one year anniversary, there were 70 people in line for four hours straight.
Somebody waited an hour and 15 minutes.
I thought to myself, I would never do that.
That's crazy.
I think we made $10,000 that day in five hours.
We were having $2,000 hours with merchandise and coffee sales.
That specific day, brought us over the $500,000 mark.
So it was really surreal.
Throughout my life, I have a lot of different dreams and goals and visions for the future.
And I know that eventually they're gonna happen.
I just don't know quite when.
It's a matter of just kind of waiting for the right doors to open.
I expected much less than what I have gotten from this business.
I expected less income, less response, less parking opportunities.
I'm really proud of where I'm at now.
I don't wish I did it sooner.
I don't think I had the capacity that I have now for a business like this.
I think that all the businesses that I have started up until now have truly it sounds cheesy, but it's truly led me to this business.
Being able to really invest in a community has allowed me a much better balance in my life and much more happiness, and I'm really excited for the future.
