Weather, whether you want it or not!

There's something magical in the air when the weather changes from cold winter to warm spring.  In the case of Durham, NC, it's more like a bad magician suddenly throwing freezing cold water on you and then scorching you with a heat lamp and then back to the cold water again.  The reason I bring up the weather is because of how drastically it affects business for food (and coffee) trucks. It also affects how much power we can draw from our solar panels.

On Friday, Bethany and I enjoyed a lovely cool morning of serving coffee and tea to folks at One Renaissance Center in Raleigh only to be barraged by gail force winds and vicious rain all the way home.  There were several times that we wondered if our trailer would be able to stay on the road!

The following day the sun came out and so did the people.  Durham Farmer's Market and Hunt St. Market was PACKED and we did our best day of business there to date.  We started serving Iced Beverages as a trial run and it went over great!  Our iced mocha is devine- made with real Videri Chocolate!  Soon we will have a very unique COLD BREW and a nice selection of Iced Teas.  We also have introduced a new special drink: the Irish Cream Latte and Irish Coffee.  Both are made with a REAL WHISKEY REDUCTION to make every Irishman and Irishwoman proud to be living in America.  

Lastly, we've already started preparing for our second Durham Food Truck Rodeo that will be on March 9th, from noon-4pm at Durham Central Park!  Don't miss this awesome event!  There's live music, 4 beer venders and 48 different Food and Coffee Trucks! We will be streamlining our truck to make sure that Durham doesn't have to wait too long to get its Specialty Coffee and Tea from the Triangle's only Solar Powered Mobile Coffee Bar. Check out http://durhamcentralpark.org/event/food-truck-rodeo-4/ for more information.

Thanks for the photo, Fran!

Thank you to our loyal fans and neighbors!  We'll see you soon!

-Tim

Solar Panels

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

The solar panels are installed and charging our beautiful coffee bar!!  A HUMONGOUS thank you goes out to the men and women of Yes!SolarSolutions who made it all possible.  I know there were a number of surprises and obstacles along the way but they did a great job and I can't wait to show off my panels to everybody!  TA-DAAAA!!

The question on everyone's mind is, "Will those panels really power the WHOLE coffee bar?"  And sadly, the answer is no, but they WILL be able to supplement the power from our generator and thereby decrease our total carbon footprint.  It also gets the word out about great companies like Yes! Solar Solutions who can help your home or business utilize the power of the sun and save you hundreds on electrical bills (no, they are not paying me to say this, but they may have given me a slight discount)!

Lately I've been so encouraged by the folks in the Specialty Coffee Industry who are representing coffee the right way.  The US Barista Competition Big Central regionals were just last weekend and I particularly loved Josh Wismans' presentation that included lighthearted dialogue about noses and an interesting perspective about tasting coffee.  Also, Shannon Steele-Knuckles' presentation using an organic coffee grown by an all-female staff from Costa Rica was awesome! (plus her name is badass)

Josh Wismans (Copyright Sprudge.com)

Shannon Steele-Knuckles (Copyright Sprudge.com)

I am planning on volunteering for Big East's Regional competitions to get the insider look on the competition that is going to be HERE!! in Durham from January 17th-19th.  It's free so ya'll should go!

Our next big task is to get our Kickstarter officially up and running!  Look for it in the next couple weeks!

Oh, and here's a look at that nasty old door that we refinished to turn into our espresso bar countertop:

From this

To this!

Get ready, Triangle!  Coffee is coming to you soon!