Brewing Something Special with Sam Nelson of Pretty Good Coffee Company

Melissa interviews Sam Nelson, owner of Pretty Good Coffee Company, a North Carolina-based luxury mobile coffee cart business that grew from his home espresso hobby into a catering-focused operation. Sam explains why he chose the cart model over a brick-and-mortar shop, emphasizing flexibility and lower overhead, and shares how the “Pretty Good” name became a fun part of the brand. He describes his Chick-fil-A-inspired approach to fast, friendly hospitality and breaks down what “specialty coffee” means — precision, consistency, and even water quality — while noting their partnership with Black & White Coffee Roasters in Wake Forest. They discuss latte art, including a latte-art printer for custom logos and faces, how they balance speed and quality, training baristas for friendliness first, favorite events, launching a third cart, and future expansion into other mobile food and beverage concepts like bartending.

00:00 Meet Sam Nelson
02:52 From Chicago to Raleigh
03:22 Birthday Espresso Spark
03:52 Why Coffee on Wheels
05:19 The Pretty Good Name
06:17 Chick-fil-A Service Mindset
07:20 What Is Specialty Coffee
09:14 Beans Origins and Processing
12:09 Latte Art and Printers
13:51 Speed Quality and Gear
15:13 How Booking Works
17:37 Favorite Clients and Dream Venues
19:06 Decaf After 5 PM
19:19 Favorite Event Venues
19:59 Leadership Lessons Learned
21:14 Hiring Friendly Baristas
22:05 Latte Art Is Hard
23:09 Perfect Day Running Carts
24:00 Indoor vs. Outdoor Setups
24:38 Three Carts Scaling Up
25:06 Future Beyond Coffee
26:22 Lightning Round Fun
27:16 Seasonal Signature Drinks
28:31 Wild Latte Art Requests
29:28 Where to Book Them
29:48 Final Thanks and Wrap

Creators and Guests

Host

Melissa

Host of What's Up, Wake + social media manager + writer + travel editor

Guest

Sam Nelson

CEO (Chief Espresso Officer)

What is What’s Up, Wake?

What’s Up, Wake covers the people, places, restaurants, and events of Wake County, North Carolina. Through conversations with local personalities from business owners to town staff and influencers to volunteers, we’ll take a closer look at what makes Wake County an outstanding place to live. Presented by Cherokee Media Group, the publishers of local lifestyle magazines Cary Magazine, Wake Living, and Main & Broad, What’s Up, Wake covers news and happenings in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Wake Forest.

[00:01:43] Melissa: I am brewing up something special with today's guest. If you've ever thought, I wish coffee would just roll straight up to me, well, Sam Nelson can make that dream a reality.

As the owner of Pretty Good Coffee Company, Sam is serving up more than just a caffeine jolt. He's delivering personality, community, and a whole lot of flavor on wheels behind this rolling brew to full. Luxury Coffee Cart Company is a creator who's turning a simple cup of coffee into full blown works of art from perfectly poured lattes to designs that are almost too pretty to drink.

Sam has mastered the art of the cart, keeping customers energized and smiling one cup at a time. So grab your favorite mug. I've got mine here and settle in because this conversation is about to perk up your day. Welcome, Sam.

[00:02:36] Sam Nelson: Thanks, Melissa. Glad to be here.

[00:02:37] Melissa: I'm excited to chat with you because this is really an out of the box type of company.

Yeah. But let's get to know you first for sure. Where are you from? Tell us about yourself. How did you come up with the idea of pretty good coffee company?

[00:02:51] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Well I'm not a native to North Carolina. I grew up in Chicago, lived in DC for a number of years, Virginia. Ohio. And then my wife and I moved here in about 2018 to the Carolinas, and I can remember.

Going over the top of the mountains and immediately being hit by the pollen. Oh yeah. And that was my first intro. You must have moved

[00:03:11] Melissa: here in March

[00:03:12] Sam Nelson: Mar. Exactly, yes. And I thought, what have we done?

[00:03:16] Melissa: Yeah.

[00:03:16] Sam Nelson: But we've loved it. We've been ever since. Um, and so we live in the, the North Raleigh area and, um, yeah.

You know, it really started, um, I tell people it it started with a birthday. It was, um, my wife's birthday's in April and one of these birthdays, I thought, I'm gonna get her a home espresso machine. So. I bought one for her and I ended up buying a gift for myself because I liked it a whole lot more than she did.

Um, but she ended up liking the, you know, the vanilla lattes along the way. And so it just really started with, you know, a new hobby that I discovered enjoying making coffee at home, serving people, and just grew from there.

[00:03:52] Melissa: So why a mobile coffee company and not your stereotypical coffee shop?

[00:03:59] Sam Nelson: Yeah, I mean, practically in the beginning it was, um.

It was what we had time for. And so we would do, um, events on the weekends. We would do a lot of apartment communities. We'll have, you know, monthly resident events. And so we'd go and we'd bring our cart and we'd serve coffee to residents. And that's what we'd do on the weekends. And in the early days, I thought, man, this is amazing.

If I could just do. One event a month this will pay for the hobby, right? Mm-hmm. I can just get more and more stuff and I can be, you know, happy. Um, but yeah, people just started booking us and, um, you know, we've had opportunities for brick and mortar locations in the last few years and we've explored them.

But each time I'm just drawn to the, um, the uniqueness and the fun of the cart, experience new people, new guests, new clients. Um, and so we stuck with it.

[00:04:46] Melissa: And I've gotta think too. There's not that overhead of having Yes. The, the expense on, you know, on the expense side of things.

[00:04:53] Sam Nelson: Yes. From a business standpoint, you know whether you're a restaurant or a coffee shop, um, you're paying bills every day.

Mm-hmm. You've gotta keep employees, um, on tap, ready to go. And in the cart, you know, world. You know, our, our costs scale with our business. And so when business is good, our costs go up. And when business is a little down, um, our costs go down. And that's been really great to be able to explore new opportunities and, you know, do more fun things.

[00:05:19] Melissa: Let's talk about the name.

[00:05:21] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:05:21] Melissa: Pretty good coffee company.

[00:05:24] Sam Nelson: Right?

[00:05:24] Melissa: I love the name. I will say though, it, it kind of depends on how, where you put the inflection. Sure. I mean, it's pretty good,

[00:05:32] Sam Nelson: right?

[00:05:32] Melissa: Where it's pretty good.

[00:05:33] Sam Nelson: Right, right. Pretty, pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Melissa: So how did you guys come up with this name?

[00:05:38] Sam Nelson: You know, it was one of those moments, um. You know, there was no marketing team. There was no chat, GBT, there was no Googling. I just, I think it's just one of my phrases like, oh yeah, this is pretty good. And um, I remember sitting down, we were starting to get some traction and I thought, I need a name for this thing.

And so, and. I started, you know, Googling and Instagramming different names and I thought, you know what? Pretty good coffee. And um, and it was available and so we went with it and it's been super fun 'cause just about every event someone says like, oh, this is pretty good. And it's just a fun little moment to say, yeah, you know, we say pretty good, but, you know, we're hoping that's actually pretty great.

Yeah.

[00:06:16] Melissa: Yeah. Good. Good. I read in, I think it was our April issue of Carry Magazine. You have a feature in In that issue?

[00:06:23] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:06:24] Melissa: And you said that you like to call yourself the Chick-fil-A of coffee.

[00:06:28] Sam Nelson: Yes.

[00:06:28] Melissa: Why is that?

[00:06:30] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Well, just from a leadership standpoint, I wanted our teams to think about everything that.

Chick-fil-A has, and the experience we have at Chick-fil-A and to channel that in some way when we are meeting the needs of one of our clients. And when I think about Chick-fil-A, I think about super fast and super friendly. And so I've just wanted our teams at every moment. We've gotta be really efficient and we've gotta be really hospitable along the way.

So sometimes in specialty coffee there's this stigma of, um, kind of snooty, kind of, you know, if it, um, it's kind of this far reaching, you know, kind of quality that you kinda have to be cool to enjoy. I wanted to lower that bar. I wanted people to feel like our baristas were so friendly, there was no barrier to entry, and that they loved serving them coffee.

So that's where the name and the kinda connection came from.

[00:07:14] Melissa: And if you're like Chick-fil-A, you have to say, my pleasure. When you hand them a cup of coffee.

[00:07:18] Sam Nelson: That's right. Yeah. Yep.

[00:07:19] Melissa: Okay. You mentioned specialty coffee. What is considered specialty coffee and how does that separate itself from regular coffee?

[00:07:29] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Well, um, you know, with my snooty comments in mind, you know, specialty coffee, I, I like to really just say, good coffee is if it tastes good. Right? If it tastes good, it is good. That being said, there's some standards, right, of how we can, um, do certain things to make coffee taste maybe a little bit better.

Um, and so sometimes people come to me and say like, Hey, my coffee doesn't taste too good. And so, you know, I kinda walk 'em through some specialty coffee values. Some of those are that there's precision from measuring exact dosage of the beans that you put into a grinder, grinding them fresh, using specialty water to brew your coffee.

Um, keeping track of variables like the temperature of your water and how long it takes. Um, it's, you know, coffee's really chemistry if you boil it down. And so specialty coffee essentially is trying to, um, meet or exceed, um, standards that, you know, you've established for yourself previously. And so wanting to, um, maintain a, just a tight threshold of, um, you know, we don't want to have any, um.

We don't wanna deviate from our recipes and we wanna make sure that every cup of coffee is consistent from the first cup to the 200th cup. I wanna make sure someone's got a good experience. So specialty coffee prioritizes some of those values to make sure that there's consistency in it.

[00:08:43] Melissa: You mentioned water and it, it took me a while to realize the importance of Yeah.

The quality of water that you're using to brew an, a good cup of coffee.

[00:08:53] Sam Nelson: Right.

[00:08:53] Melissa: Um, I know when I go to Boone, I love the Boone area. They have the best water in the mountains. I don't know what it is. Yeah. But they just have the, the best water. But the coffee there tastes so much better. Yeah, sure. Than the coffee.

Especially at the beach when the water is kind of Right. You know, salty. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:09:10] Sam Nelson: yeah.

[00:09:11] Melissa: Um, so water makes a huge difference. I'm glad you mentioned that. Where do you get your coffee beans?

[00:09:16] Sam Nelson: Yeah, we, um, are partnered with black and white coffee roasters in Wake Forest, so

[00:09:21] Melissa: Oh, good,

[00:09:21] Sam Nelson: okay. Local company. Yep.

Great. We've got our special blend with them. Pretty good coffee and, um, yeah, we love working with them. They, you

[00:09:26] Melissa: brought me some today. We did. And I, I always tell people that my favorite guest, um, I'm not supposed to choose favorites, but I do if you bring me a gift. Yeah. So thank you for this. I'm excited to try this.

You're so welcome. So they're in. Wake Forest. Yep. I have not been out there. I very rarely go out to Wake Forest these days. I'm on the other side of Raleigh. Sure. Um, I always joke that if I go to Wake Forest, I might as well drive to Greensboro. Sure.

[00:09:50] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:51] Melissa: Um, but so have you found that coffee really tastes very different if it's from say.

Costa Rica or you know, Venezuela What Colombian coffee. Yeah. So what, how do you choose what kind you like the most?

[00:10:07] Sam Nelson: That's a great question. I, the, the places where coffee's from certainly matters. Um, I think what matters equally or even a little bit more is how it's processed. And so different regions have different processing techniques.

There's essentially three standard ones, and there's deviations from these, but there's washed coffee, natural coffee, and then what they call a honey processed coffee. And it, it basically goes back to wherever the region is, where that coffee's produced. What did the growers and the um. You know, the, the regulators, what do they do with the coffee cherry?

Because it starts as a little fruit that grows on a bush, and there's the skin around it. There is the, the cherry pulp and then the seed essentially. And, um, depending on what you do with that pulp, whether you wash it off or you leave it on and then dry your beans, it actually affects the taste of the coffee.

So, in broad terms, a washed coffee, when they remove that, um, outside fruit layer. Wash the coffee and then let it dry. It's gonna taste, um, very clear, very, um, that the coffee is gonna shine through very earthy versus a, um, a natural coffee with the, when they let it dry and process with the fruit on it, it actually starts to impart some of that fruitiness, that juiciness, and those typically taste a little more you know, fruity kind of fruit punch at times.

And so, um, you know, regions matter, but that processing matters just as much, if not a little bit more.

[00:11:27] Melissa: I always think about, um. Things like this. So you're talking about, you know, finding the, the fruit on, on the bush. Yeah. And I think, yeah. Who was the first person that found this and thought, I'm gonna make a, a hot caffeinated drink out of this.

I just I'd love to go back in time and meet that person and, and understand their brain.

[00:11:46] Sam Nelson: Yeah. If I actually remember the story right, it was goats in Africa that these farmers noticed that goats in Africa were eating these beans and that they were wire. Like they were Oh, they were like energetic and doing things.

Yeah. And so like, it just led to like, oh, why don't we try these? Mm-hmm. You know, berries, growing in these trees, it gives me energy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, here we are, you know, fast forward a few hundred years.

[00:12:06] Melissa: That's awesome. Yeah. I love that. Okay. You guys are more than just coffee. You also have an artistic element that you, that you like to do.

[00:12:16] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:12:17] Melissa: What made you incorporate art and how do you go about incorporating the art to your coffee?

[00:12:22] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Well. That's a little bit about specialty coffee is that latte art is standard. Um, and so like when we're pouring milk, we're steaming it one in a way that, um, can allow us to pour latte art, whether that's a heart, a tulip, or a swan.

Um, and so that was standard for us on our drinks from the beginning. We wanted people to know that what they're about to taste is delicious, and so we wanna show them a beautiful picture. And then we took that the next step further by, um, using, um, our latte, art printer. And that allows us to create custom images and logos.

[00:12:54] Melissa: Yeah, because I've seen pictures of your coffee and lattes with actual faces. I know of them. Our editor even had her face put on a, on a cup of coffee.

[00:13:03] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. And that's been, you know, that's part of, um, like our value, like we value coffee, but we value hospitality more. So if you think about luxury hospitality, it is anticipating and exceeding your needs before you even know that you have them.

And so when we thought about our clients, we thought these are some things that they're gonna really be wowed by. And so every time we show up we wanna wow someone. And so we thought this latte art printer is a no-brainer. We can upload their logo, we can, um, when we do artist events, we will get a picture, like a headshot of the artist, put it on the cup.

And surprised him, like, here you go. It's your face, right? Mm-hmm. We did an event with, um, it was a groundbreaking RTP and governor Stein was there, and so we printed his face right on a cup of coffee. Mm-hmm. And it always wows people because they're always like, this is amazing. So it was an, it was just a, an extension of our hospitality forward kind of mindset.

[00:13:51] Melissa: Well, I understand the desire for hospitality, but when somebody is ordering coffee, they also want it super fast. That's right. So how do you balance that, you know, between having, you know. Speed, quality. Yeah. And customer experience.

[00:14:06] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Well, I tell our teams we're aiming for 90 seconds from ordering to sipping.

[00:14:10] Melissa: Wow.

[00:14:11] Sam Nelson: And we love that. And I think we meet it or exceed it sometimes. Mm-hmm. And there's a few ways that we've done that. Um, part of that is that as a business owner, I want to give our team the best equipment. And so I don't want to cut corners by giving them maybe. Cheaper equipment that might take a little bit longer because at at the end of the day, that's gonna create a more frustrating work experience for my baristas.

[00:14:31] Melissa: Yeah. I mean, when you say the word printer, yeah. I'm always like jamming a printer, messing up. Sure. Somehow and you know, you say printer, I'm like, I'm out because I know I'm gonna break that thing. But it sounds like if it's a, you know, really nice, high quality. Yeah.

[00:14:43] Sam Nelson: Machine. Yeah. All of our stuff is high quality.

You know, we're using things that you'd see in a specialty cafe, handmade in Italy, LACA machines, Malona grinders, um, and we're trying to find the equipment that is going to, um, help ensure speed. And so, um, yeah, part of that is training our teams to even use the equipment in a fast way. Um, all the while being friendly and hospitable, which is kind of the art of training, you know, teams to not just be focused too much on coffee or too much on people, but to do them both equally well.

So.

[00:15:13] Melissa: How does a mobile coffee cart work? Do I. Book you guys to come to my location?

[00:15:21] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:15:22] Melissa: Or do you just pop up around town, wherever you want to go if you're not booked?

[00:15:26] Sam Nelson: Yeah. No, we typically just do catering. We did some popups in the beginning, um, but then, you know, events started pouring in, so we just wanted to devote time to our catering contracts.

Yeah, essentially you fill out our booking form and, um, the way that we operate is that you tell us the amount of people that will be there. The amount of time that you wanna serving coffee, and then we, we give you a quote for unlimited coffee drinks for your guests during that timeframe. And so if you were to book us, we'd show up at, you know, probably an hour, hour and a half before we would discretely set up everything, get ready to serve.

Serve your guests for those, you know, a few hours, pack up and drive away. And, um, yeah. So that's typically kinda what that looks like.

So what is your favorite type of client? Your ideal? What's your ideal day Yeah. And set up look like for you?

[00:17:44] Sam Nelson: That's a great question. Um, love 'em all. Um, I think that, um, the, no,

[00:17:48] Melissa: I want you to name your very favorite one and your least favorite one.

Go.

[00:17:52] Sam Nelson: Oh. Yeah. Um, well, I think our favorite clients are, um. The clients that are, are focused on, um, wowing their guests that have that kind of share the value of over the top hospitality. Um, sometimes, um, when like we love not being the focal point. And supporting someone else's dream or vision. Um, and even taking it the next level.

So typically we see that with like brand activations, you know, marketing events. Um, like Sweet Green opened up, um, new location in Chapel Hill and that was just super fun. There's a lot of energy in the room, um, and we just love being part of that energy. And so yeah, those are some of our, our favorite, um, events.

[00:18:34] Melissa: Do you have a, a dream local client or a, a dream event that you guys haven't catered to yet?

[00:18:41] Sam Nelson: Yeah, well, we've, one of my favorites was, um, doing coffee for Blink 180 2 at the, um, it was at the PNC arena at the time. Now it's the Lenovo Stadium. Um, so that was a hit, but the, the event venue that we've not done yet is red Hat Amphitheater, and so we would love that.

I think that'd be a kind of a bucket list location for us. Yeah.

[00:19:00] Melissa: Yeah. That would be really fun. Yeah. And the perfect spot,

[00:19:03] Sam Nelson: I know. Yeah. To

[00:19:03] Melissa: set up a cart.

[00:19:04] Sam Nelson: Totally. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:19:06] Melissa: Although I. I have found, especially the older I get, I cannot have caffeine past like 5:00 PM Yeah. So I would have to have a decaf for mine.

[00:19:14] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. We can,

[00:19:14] Melissa: coming out of a Right. A concert or something like that, I'd be up all

[00:19:18] Sam Nelson: night. Yeah. No, you decaf for sure.

[00:19:19] Melissa: Do you have a, a favorite spot that you have served at? You mentioned Lenovo.

[00:19:24] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:19:24] Melissa: Do you have any other spots that you just. As soon as you see the booking, you think, yes, I get to go back here.

[00:19:30] Sam Nelson: Yeah, I, well, there's, there's a few, um, you know, favorites and, and some of those are like the Raleigh Realtors Association, um, you'd never expect, um, like they need coffee, but, you know, we love going back there, for example, because they share our values for hospitality. The teams there are really friendly and, you know, enjoyable to be around.

Um, we've also done events with Deepak in Durham and I mean, that's always, you know, just like kind of backstage anywhere is super fun to be around the energy of the room. Yeah,

[00:19:57] Melissa: that would be fun.

[00:19:57] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:59] Melissa: What lessons have you learned along the way since you've opened up? This company.

[00:20:05] Sam Nelson: Yeah, tons. I've made tons of mistakes, um, looked back and thought, okay, I need to do that better.

Mm-hmm. Um, I need to expect more of myself, um, and even a little bit less of my team, you know, kind of practicing extreme ownership, thinking that if like whatever's happening at an event before, during, or after, um, there's something upstream that I did that caused that. And so when things don't go right.

I've gotta look at myself first and say, okay, what can I adjust in my leadership that's gonna, you know, create a better experience? Um, in addition to that, I think, um, learning how to develop leaders has been a big part of this. Um, I've kind of training, um, our event leads to be really great, not managers, but leaders that are supporting their teams, supporting the baristas that they lead.

And so some of that is skill development and some of that's character of like, Hey, you know, we're not harsh. We're not, we're not gonna, um. We're not gonna be harsh with the guests. We're not gonna be harsh with our team because the hospitality that they experience from me as the boss and owner is gonna be the hospitality that they demonstrate to our guests.

And so it always flows downstream from leadership. And so that's been a big lesson along the way.

[00:21:14] Melissa: How do you go about recruiting and training your baristas in particular?

[00:21:18] Sam Nelson: Yeah. It, we start with not the skill of can you make coffee, but are you an enjoyable, friendly person?

[00:21:26] Melissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:26] Sam Nelson: Because I can teach you how to make coffee.

[00:21:28] Melissa: Yeah.

[00:21:28] Sam Nelson: Right. I've taught most of our baristas how to steam milk, how to pull a good shot of espresso. What I can't teach you very quickly is how to be a nice person.

[00:21:36] Melissa: Mm.

[00:21:36] Sam Nelson: And so we look for nice people that are really friendly, really enjoyable. Um, and then from there we, the

[00:21:42] Melissa: Chick-fil-A personality.

[00:21:43] Sam Nelson: That's right.

The Chick-fil-A personality. We've hired a few ex Chick-fil-A employees. Mm-hmm. And then from there, we train the skills. And we found that that formula works a lot better than trying to find someone that knows coffee and then teach them how to be really friendly.

[00:21:56] Melissa: Oh.

[00:21:56] Sam Nelson: So

[00:21:57] Melissa: yeah. I mean, you really can't teach that part.

[00:21:59] Sam Nelson: It's a little more difficult.

[00:22:00] Melissa: Yeah, I would say so.

[00:22:01] Sam Nelson: It's caught rather than taught. Yeah,

[00:22:03] Melissa: for sure. Okay. On a regular day, I walk up to your coffee cart. What, what is one thing that looks easy but is actually not easy?

[00:22:17] Sam Nelson: Oh, that's a great question.

[00:22:19] Melissa: I mean, I would think the art, but now you're saying that it's really a, a digital thing that you can just, you know,

[00:22:24] Sam Nelson: well, there's the digital part to art and then there's the manual part.

Mm-hmm. If I had to pick that, I'd probably say that because, um, pouring latte art is so much more than just simply a cup and then pouring the milk. Anyone that's got a home espresso machine at home, and if you mess it up,

[00:22:38] Melissa: you've. Start over with the whole cup, right?

[00:22:40] Sam Nelson: That's right. We do that.

[00:22:41] Melissa: Yeah,

[00:22:41] Sam Nelson: we do that.

Yeah. Like I'll look at something and then I'll look at a client and there's a part of me that wants to say, just put a lid on it and just give it to them and go. Yeah. And like to me, I, I tell our teams like we don't cut corners. And so in that moment, I'm either gonna build our company by doing what I preach or I'm gonna break it down by saying like, no, it's okay.

We can excuse this. So pouring the art is definitely tough because it starts with steaming the milk correctly, and then once you steam it correctly, you're able to pour it correctly. And so there's kind of two stages to that. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:23:08] Melissa: Okay. What does a perfect day look like for you running your cart?

[00:23:14] Sam Nelson: That's a great question. Perfect day. Um, I, um, huh. A perfect day is, several events would be great. Mm-hmm. Um, that our teams are running that I get to simply just visit Mm. Visit and support. I did that this morning. Our team was doing an event and I get to cheer them on. I get to coach them. Mm-hmm. I get to be their greatest cheerleader.

Um, I get to interact with clients and say, Hey, I'm here. Just 'cause I, I value you. Thank you for booking us. Um, doing some emails, getting some, you know, long-term planning done. Um, I'm a big I'm a deep thinker and so I'm thinking like, okay, what do we need to be doing six months, 12 months from now?

Mm-hmm. And so I'm trying to think, you know, kind of big picture kind of stuff. And then of course time with family and, you know, being able to reflect on the day or even reflect on the cool clients that we had that day.

[00:24:00] Melissa: Do you prefer setting up outside somewhere, or do you like being indoors?

[00:24:06] Sam Nelson: Both are fine.

Mm-hmm. If I had to pick one, I'd probably say indoors. We've done some pretty, um, hot events outside before.

[00:24:13] Melissa: Oh yeah, that is true.

[00:24:14] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And then the, you know, the funny thing with like coffee is that humidity and temperature effect, it's quality. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes our grinders don't work as well outside.

And so

[00:24:24] Melissa: Thats a very good point.

[00:24:25] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:24:25] Melissa: Yeah. That goes along with the pollen that you were introduced to on day one.

[00:24:28] Sam Nelson: Oh yes. We've done events like weddings outside. Mm-hmm. And after the event, there's. Thin layer of pollen everywhere, and we're like, okay, let's do a deep clean, we gotta get rid of this. Yeah.

Yeah.

[00:24:38] Melissa: How many carts do you guys have?

[00:24:40] Sam Nelson: We just launched our third cart. Yeah.

[00:24:42] Melissa: Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, three carts. So you could, so you ideally could have three different events happening simultaneously.

[00:24:48] Sam Nelson: That's right. And we've done that. We had, there was this one crazy weekend that we had where we had a, um, Madewell grand opening in Wilmington, and then we had a children's boutique grand opening here in Chapel Hill.

Mm-hmm. And so we were like, it was, could not be farther apart. Yeah. But our teams crushed it and they did a great job.

[00:25:06] Melissa: What is next? You talked about six months down the line. A year down the line. Yeah. What is next for a pretty good coffee company?

[00:25:13] Sam Nelson: You know, sometimes people ask like, okay, when are you gonna open that brick and mortar?

And I don't think that's the next spot for us. Mm-hmm. I think the next spot for us is. Is expanding that luxury hospitality to different foods and beverages.

[00:25:25] Melissa: Oh, interesting.

[00:25:26] Sam Nelson: So like our mission as a team, um, is to transform your event with luxury hospitality. And I chose a broad mission statement on purpose.

'cause I wanted it to apply to food, to mobile bartending to coffee.

[00:25:39] Melissa: Yeah.

[00:25:40] Sam Nelson: Mobile bartending would be great. Smoothies. Exactly. Yeah. So that's what I think about when I think about the next six or 12 months.

[00:25:45] Melissa: Okay. Okay. So if you had to start another cart tomorrow, would it be bartending? Do you think you would do that first?

[00:25:53] Sam Nelson: I think so, yeah. There's a few of us on the team that, you know, kind of find that as a hobby, enjoy that. Mm-hmm. And it, you know, a lot of our equipment scales to that, right? Mm-hmm. We could probably make the. Best mobile espresso martini in all of Raleigh. 'cause I mean, we're a coffee company.

[00:26:06] Melissa: Yeah.

[00:26:06] Sam Nelson: Also doing bartending.

Um, and so I think, you know, a lot of those, sometimes coffee events are morning events and then I think it'd be easy to then kind of jump into some evening events.

[00:26:14] Melissa: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. You know, come up to a wedding or, you know, after a concert, like you said. Yeah. Yeah. It, it does make sense.

[00:26:21] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:26:22] Melissa: Okay. It is time for our, what's up Roundup.

Okay. Where I ask a lightning round series of questions before we go. If you could serve coffee to any celebrity athlete, anyone in the world, who would you want to serve?

[00:26:36] Sam Nelson: Huh? Who would I wanna serve? I think

[00:26:40] Melissa: could be past. Could be present.

[00:26:41] Sam Nelson: Okay.

[00:26:42] Melissa: Anybody?

[00:26:42] Sam Nelson: Yeah. I would probably say probably this old, this is you know, feel very random. There's this author from the 16th century that I love to read, and his name is Thomas Brooks. And he was a, a pastor in England at the time. And so I'd probably just say I'd love to serve Thomas Brooks. A cup of coffee.

[00:26:58] Melissa: Yeah.

Especially if you could stay around for a chat,

[00:27:01] Sam Nelson: right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yes. He's a, he's a fan of mine. We named our first son after him. Okay. Yeah, I'd probably say him.

[00:27:07] Melissa: Great. Okay. Alright. I thought you were gonna say like J-Lo or something like that. Yeah. So that was a lot deeper

[00:27:12] Sam Nelson: than I expected. No, that's the, that's the real answer.

Yeah. Yeah. That's,

[00:27:14] Melissa: yeah. That's a great, that's a great one. What is your most popular drink with customers?

[00:27:20] Sam Nelson: Yeah. Well, our, um, our menu changes every season. Um, we make our syrups from scratch and so we do a new batch of syrups every kind of few months. Right now it's been vanilla caram. Mm. And um, so whether that's a vanilla, cardamom latte, or cappuccino, that one has been a huge hit.

Um,

[00:27:36] Melissa: that sounds delicious.

[00:27:37] Sam Nelson: It is. Have you ever had cardamom before?

[00:27:39] Melissa: No, I don't think I have.

[00:27:40] Sam Nelson: It's similar to vanilla. It's like a, um, an earthy herbal kind of vanilla taste to it. Um, it's really popular, um, obviously in India, but then also in countries like Sweden. And my wife and I visited some friends in Sweden a few years ago, and they have these, um, cardamon buns.

And that was the inspiration for, how do I take this? Experience and put it into a cup of coffee. So the vanilla, cardamom latte is probably that.

[00:28:03] Melissa: Wow. That, that actually sounds really amazing. If Raleigh had an official coffee drink, what would it be?

[00:28:13] Sam Nelson: Hmm. Something with oak trees, certainly. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe. Um. Hmm. Maybe the Oak City latte and we've got, you know real acorns in it. You know, something like that. Right. You know?

[00:28:29] Melissa: Yeah.

[00:28:29] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:28:30] Melissa: Yeah. That's a good one. All right. What is the strangest latte art you have ever gotten as a request?

[00:28:38] Sam Nelson: Hmm. Um, well one time, um, we were at an event and, and someone, for whatever reason, they had their home, um, like their own mug from home, and it was this giant mug.

[00:28:50] Melissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:51] Sam Nelson: And something about latte art and pouring latte art. It really needs to be the right cup to pour latte art correctly. Yeah, I can

[00:28:57] Melissa: imagine. Yeah.

[00:28:58] Sam Nelson: And this mug was like a gallon size,

[00:29:01] Melissa: so it would be like the, the person's whole face. And life size could be printed

[00:29:06] Sam Nelson: on. Yeah. And he asked me, asked me, I would like you to pour a swan into my mug.

And I thought,

[00:29:11] Melissa: that's a fat swan.

[00:29:12] Sam Nelson: I thought I would love to do that. Swans are already hard, but I cannot do it with this giant cup that you have.

[00:29:17] Melissa: Yeah, because it really, you pour it and then it fills up the space, right? It does. Yeah.

[00:29:20] Sam Nelson: Yeah, yeah. So I would need a giant pitcher to even do that. And so he

[00:29:24] Melissa: was just trying to mess with you

[00:29:25] Sam Nelson: maybe.

Yeah,

[00:29:26] Melissa: it sounds like it.

[00:29:27] Sam Nelson: Yeah.

[00:29:28] Melissa: Okay, tell us where we can find you guys, where we can follow you on social media and where we can book the coffee cart.

[00:29:34] Sam Nelson: Yeah, pretty good. Coffee company.com is our website. And then same thing on Instagram. Pretty good coffee company. Um, there's a link there called, you know, click book us.

And this great, um, booking page will come up and it'll ask you all the questions that we need and that'll start the conversation.

[00:29:48] Melissa: Thank you so much for being here today. Yeah. Thank you for my gift. You're welcome. I'm excited to try the coffee. Yeah, and I look forward to actually visiting the cart one day.

[00:29:56] Sam Nelson: Sounds great. Thanks, Melissa.

[00:29:57] Melissa: Thanks so much, Sam.

[00:29:57] Sam Nelson: Yeah.