Coffee Trailer

The 3 Lakes Cafe Coffee Trailer Story

In the spring of 2025 we were approached by a woman from a church in Fredonia asking if we were interested in serving coffee at her church's woman's retreat in a couple weekends. Being the entrepreneurs we are, we saw the opportunity to make some extra money as well as reach a new area of customers that might not know who we are yet. 

After agreeing to the offer, she was overjoyed sharing that she had asked other coffee shops who declined the offer. That sparked an idea in our heads that we bookmarked for later. Buying the supplies we needed for this one off event, like pitchers, dispensers, serving platters, we were ready to serve people outside of the shop for the first time. 

After a first successful event, we moved right on to the Gerry Rodeo where we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The Gerry Rodeo is 4 days long, versus the fair being 6. And is also open from 4pm-11pm versus the 1pm-10pm. So our expectations were low for the rodeo. What followed was that at 6:30pm (1.5 hrs before the rodeo starts) we accumulated a line of no less than 25 people at all times for the next hour and a half. Making boba tea drinks as fast as we can, we swalloed the sales from the county fair in less than 2 days!

That is when we realized we were onto something but we needed to do it better. Bringing all the materials from the basement, up to a trailer, unpack a trailer and set everything up, pack it all back up and put it back into a basement; that's a lot of work. So we started thinking about a trailer. But we were not prepared to invest in a full coffee trailer. That is when I went on facebook marketplace and found a camper that was close to junk for just $1,200. I saw the vision. I saw the potential in the camper to turn it into a coffee trailer. If you know anything about our story of building our brick and mortar, if I could do it with a building, I could do it with a trailer. 

We put in an offer for the camper and were greeted with a deal. The owner knew us from our coffee shop and liked us. He offered us to pay him $700 cash and give him a $500 gift card to our shop. Deal. 

We had our trailer and it was off to work. Starting off by just repairing it where there were holes and damage then moving to actually figuring out how we were going to design it. By this point it was about October and starting to get cold. But I knew that I didn't want to set up that tent again, so I needed to finish this trailer before the spring time. 

Working day and night into the single digits of tempature, we realized we weren't going to have enough money for this project. That is when we learned about grant funding. We came across a grant called the Microenterprise Assistance Program (MAP Grant). A grant that aims to help micro businesses with less than 5 employees open up opportunites for more employment. Exaclty what are trying to do. We sucured an $11,000 grant which gave us enough money to buy all the equipment we needed to build the trailer. 

Months went on, and one day after another, we were getting closer and closer to finishing the trailer. With our first event coming at the end of June, we were down to the wire. But finishing just in time we set out for our first event with the coffee trailer: Cherry Creek Independance Parade. It was a huge hit! Everything ran smoothly, sales were great, and what followed was many different event planners asking to have our trailer at their event. We have become the new hot trailer for any event. 

That first summer was jam packed, getting into every single event we could get into. Farmers Markets, private events, Gerry Rodeo, CHQ Fair. We got into everything. That brings us to today, we have a schedule that continues to grow and develop finding the best events that allow us to showcase just a little bit of what our brick and mortar offers. Giving new customers a taste of what they can find in Cassadaga. The journey to this point was a healthy mix of an opportunity falling into our lap and taking a bet on ourselves that we could take advantage of a new area of business for us.