Commune + Co. is still on the hunt for a brick-and-mortar home, but the BOTB-winning Tampa based-purveyors of nitro-tapped, pressure-brewed iced coffee aren't going to wait for you to come to a pop-up shop anymore.
Last Friday, founder Joel Davis took his new coffee cart for a spin on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City and got the immediate attention of a very special set of new fans.
“Within three minutes, I got pulled over,” Davis told CL Thursday outside an Ybor office where the tricycle was painted. “Cops thought we had beer in there, but they were all about it as soon as we explained what it was.”
Davis, 31, won’t run into that kind of trouble from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday when he brings the cart to Cigar City Brewing’s tasting room for a pop-up. This is where the steed’s fresh paint job — courtesy of Jeffery Sinich and Josh Stover of J&S Signs — will be unveiled.
Davis met Sinich, 24, and Stover, 26, at Seminole Heights cyclery Velo Champ, where owner Jordan Miller helped Commune + Co. source, purchase and piece together the custom parts made by Dutch cargo bike-maker Babboe.
J&S’ trademark, hand-painted typeface spells out “Iced Coffee” and “Pressure Brewed, Nitro Tapped” on the sides of the handcrafted, custom keg box, fashioned by Hayden Davidson at Journeyman Wood and Wares.
Davis was inspired to do a coffee cart by Ohio’s Mission Coffee Co., which has a similar apparatus. He explained that sourcing the parts usually takes over nine months due to Babboe’s shipping constraints, but timing was on his side. Davis and collaborators turned the project from idea to reality in just three-and-a-half months.
“We got lucky,” he said.
The big plan is to have the coffee cart rolling around downtown Tampa five days a week, providing visitors and office-space warriors another option in the battle to stay caffeinated. But for now, drinkers can check it out Sunday.
Here’s the finished product:
