May 9th is a big day for us. It was three years ago today that we sold and moved out of our home and became van dwelling nomads. And now three years later we are setting up a home base in a 500 sq ft co-op apartment in Toronto. And….drum roll…..
We are about to embark on our fourth business adventure in our 27 years together! At the end of May we will be mobile baristas! We are taking over the levers, so to speak, of a beautiful Astoria Espresso machine housed in the back of a 1982 Vespa Ape from Ana Diez and Jeff Douglas.
Here’s our story: As we were preparing to leave Toronto near the end of May 2014 we were walking around Annette and Runnymede when we spotted this sweet vehicle. Ana offered us a quick tour and we were smitten. We’ve followed them on Instagram since that encounter. Imagine our surprise when in March, while in the middle of a full scale apartment renovation and debating over how to earn a living moving forward (Yes! We do still need to earn money…) we saw that Macchina Mobile Café was for sale! All we had to do was talk to these two like-minded people, now friends, over coffee of course, the following day and it was a done deal. Neither of us could think of a reason NOT to do it! For as long as I have known Christian he has expressed a desire to make and sell coffee from the back of a Vespa truck. So, it seemed like fate. Our shared attitude is that if you’re going to change your life in such a dramatic way as we did 3 years ago why not really change it up. We will still design and create and make… it is in our DNA. And we will still travel… each of us apparently has the nomad gene. We see this as a seasonal business – early spring to late fall for sure, maybe longer, who knows?! Least of all us!! – It will allow us the winter to travel in our beloved van. We see a delicious cup of coffee in the future for all of you!
Potential new mottos may be any of the following:
All Roads Lead to Coffee
Café is Where We Park It
The Road to Coffee
Living the Coffee Dream
Veni Vidi Caffè
Coffee Before Stuff
Coffeelander
And as for the renovation of our new Toronto pad… the renovation continues. We are getting close to completion and to moving in. One way or another we will be living there as of tomorrow! We won’t have our bed or a working kitchen or most of our belongings but we will have all we really need. Next post: the renovated apartment!!! and soon some coffee making under our belted aprons.