Dear Coco Coffee

Have you ever been camping?

Not the Instagram version. Proper, down-and-dirty camping.

The one where you spend days planning, packing and organising. Where making something as simple as a morning coffee suddenly requires immense effort.

You quickly realise that the routines you take for granted at home only work because everything is already there.

That’s the reality of a coffee truck.

Every day, we create a fully functioning coffee shop in a place where no coffee shop exists.

Before the first coffee is brewed, the truck has to be loaded and driven to site. It’s levelled on ramps, brought to life with power, stocked, dialled in and set up for service. The milk has to stay cold, equipment constantly monitored, displays set out, and everything ready for an 8 hour service.

We’re essentially setting up and breaking down a fully functioning coffee campsite every single day.

The beauty of a coffee truck is that it feels effortless to the customer. That’s exactly how it should be. But beneath the swan gliding across the pond, there’s an enormous amount of work that most people never see — and shouldn’t have to.

So the next time you’re tempted to grumble about the price of a flat white from a coffee truck, remember this…

Yes, we may not be paying rent like a fixed coffee shop. But we’re transporting an entire coffee shop, setting it up from scratch, running it, and packing it all away again at the end of every day.

A bricks-and-mortar coffee shop owner doesn’t have to move their entire operation twice a day.
The costs are different, because the logistics are different.

In many ways, you’re not just paying for the coffee. You’re paying for the luxury of great coffee exactly where you are, in a place where coffee wouldn’t exist unless we put it there.

That’s the magic of coffee trucks. An oasis in the coffee desert.

Happy camping.

Ant x

Today my eldest daughter Malia finishes her A-Level exams, bringing to an end her High School years.

I don’t know about you, the older I get the more emotional I become. Today I have so many visions flying in and out of my mind.

Taking Malia to daycare and Primary School in Australia. Teaching her spelling and tying her shoes on the bottom step. Re-locating the family to London and finding her feet in a new system.

I see her so diligently studying late into the night, sitting in the dark under her desk lamp, wanting to live up to the standards she set for herself.

The endless study lists, mock exams, book marks, pieces of paper, whiteboard notes, used workbooks. The self-disciplined effort she has expelled over so many years inspires the heck out of me.

The result, she’s on track to walk out those school gates with the highest grades possible to achieve - three A stars.

I’m getting teary just typing this.

Boy oh boy I’m proud of you kiddo. Enjoy the feeling of a huge chapter closing this afternoon knowing you did it right.

Love dad x