Meet Emilio Daniel Vasquez | Founder of Coffee Cart Boys

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emilio Daniel Vasquez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emilio Daniel, how does your business help the community?
My business partners and I started our humanitarian efforts by working with a local non-profit in Pasadena called Learning Works Charter School (LWCS), which is a school that helps at-risk and in-crisis youth up to age 25 obtain their high school diplomas or GEDs.

I helped to build that organization and have since left, but years later I wanted to start a for-profit business (enter Coffee Cart Boys) to help give back to them because it changes the lives of kids in similar situations I’ve personally endured such as homelessness, hunger, and was at high-risk for dropping out of high school. We donate charitable proceeds to LWCS (15% of profits from every retail bag we sell online) to help uplift and give back to our community.

So far over the past two years, we’ve donated over $2,000 to Learning Works to help them pay for programs that The State of California doesn’t provide grant funding for, such as diaper drives, an on-campus community garden, on-campus daycare for enrolled teen parent students, and even homeless support systems like on-site laundry (washers and dryers), a shower and hosting canned food drives.

Our long-term goal is to expand this model nationwide via a coffee cart franchise program for entrepreneurs and business owners like us who enter this competitive industry with few to no resources, and also want to uplift their communities.

What should our readers know about your business?
What excites me most about being a business owner is creating a legacy!

It’s honestly a HUGE challenge. One that can’t be figured out instantly, and businesses don’t become successful overnight despite what’s seen on social media or TV. There’s so much to learn and we’re working tirelessly to accomplish our goals as a company. Defining what “success” looks like for us has been difficult, but now we confidently know where we’re heading long term. It’s a cliché but SO TRUE: if it was easy, everyone would start a business.

We come from a high-end retail background and genuinely love providing great service and quality products, but when we first launched, we had no clue what we were doing. None of us had prior experience in the world of coffee, and in several ways, we still don’t know what to do. However, that’s incredibly exciting! We knew we wanted a cart so we could serve coffee at Tesla charging stations (which we still want to do), but instead, we started selling delicious specialty coffee beans by the bag from a local roaster whose family owns a farm in Nicaragua.

From there, we moved on to public events and popups where we learned A LOT about working with crowds and how to manage an events-focused business efficiently. Naturally, we gained enough experience in our food service “boot camp” by working popups, that we decided catering private events would be our next chapter, so here we are providing hot and nitro cold brew specialty coffee in addition to cascara coffee cherry tea at birthday parties, weddings, corporate events, bridal showers, baby showers, event activations and so much more!

What we’d like people to know about us is this: we’ve become a family!

Regardless of how exhausting the bumps in the road can be, our challenges build character and teach lessons that can’t be learned in a classroom. Behind the scenes, we argue, laugh, tease each other, and weekly virtual meetings aren’t always easy to attend with all of us still having full-time jobs outside of CCB.

Still, we communicate constantly and always think of ways to push forward and persevere, because we all have an immense passion for helping build a better future for the coffee industry: a national mobile coffee cart service that positively impacts every community within which we operate.

I love working with my partners to create something special: the experience Coffee Cart Boys (CCB) provides to clients in Southern California, and I guarantee you’ll love working with us!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh man, so many amazing spots!

For breakfast, we could get some acai, or eat at “Milly’s Cafe” or “Cafe de Olla”, then go to the Santa Monica pier for a morning or afternoon and then to a Dodger game one day. On another day, we’d head to Universal Studios Hollywood, Hollywood Wax Museum, or Natural History Museum.

A do-not-miss would be, of course, The Getty in Malibu followed by a drive south on PCH down to Laguna Beach for some of the most beautiful ocean views in the world. We could hang out at The Grand Central Market for lunch on one day too to discover all sorts of culinary adventures under one single roof.

But the food scene around LA can’t be missed either and could take certainly more than one week to experience it all… Delights such as Korean BBQ, Sushi, Roscoe’s Chicken n Waffles, and of course… Tacos! If there’s any room left in our stomachs, we then would stop by a local Boba shop to grab a sweet beverage for an after-dinner treat.

If my friend is in town during basketball or football season, lunch at Pie n Burger before a Laker game, or a Rams game then Pie n Burger for dinner. No matter what, I’m showing them a great time while they’re out here for a short OR long visit!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to dedicate this to my son, Cameron, who is my most significant ‘why’. He motivates me to persevere against all odds, criticism, and hardship to ensure I provide the best life possible for him.

Also, this is for my mentor and the CEO/Founder of Public Works, Inc. (Learning Works’s parent organization), Mikala Rahn. I wouldn’t be here today without her strong love, support, and emphasis on education and personal growth…oh yeah, and her couch too! I was her first homeless student needing a place to crash on nights I didn’t have anywhere else to couch surf. Then after Mikala’s family welcomed me unconditionally and I got to know them better, her sister put me up in her home during my senior year of high school. That kindness allowed me to work and focus on school, paving the road for me to graduate.

Website: https://coffeecartboys.com/?utm_source=shoutout_la&utm_medium=media_article&utm_campaign=shoutout_la_feature&utm_id=website_link

Instagram: https://instagram.com/coffeecartboys

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-cart-boys

Twitter: https://twitter.com/coffeecartboys/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coffeecartboys/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/coffee-cart-boys-monrovia

Image Credits
Photos by Abbie Clinton (@heyabbiemae on Instagram), Sean Ireton (@nuinspiration on Instagram), and @thepaeshop (Instagram).