News

Cafe2U mobile espresso van opens in Colorado

August 8, 2012

The gourmet coffee shop on wheels has rolled into Denver.

A new coffee concept made its debut in Colorado this week when Scott Phillips' Cafe2U mobile espresso van began serving customers in Denver -- delivering gourmet espresso drinks to office parks, construction sites, banks and other business locations.

Phillips is just the third American franchisee for Cafe2U, a fast-growing international franchise system that's just beginning an aggressive American expansion. Cafe2U USA wants 1,000 vans eventually operating in the U.S.

"We get to be at the ground level of what we think is an amazing new business and a new idea in the U.S.," Phillips said. "We feel like we're pioneers."

Cafe2U was founded in Sydney in 2000 and began franchising five years later, quickly growing from 12 vans in the Sydney area to more than 200 vans operating throughout Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and New Zealand. Cafe2U USA is headquartered in Bend, Ore.

Cafe2U mobile espresso vans deliver coffee to business customers on fixed weekday routes and events on nights and weekends.

Cafe2U won a bronze medal at the 2010 CSR Golden Bean Roasting Competition, where its coffee blend competed against 1,200 entries in international competition. Each Cafe2U van carries a $7,000 espresso machine, a $1,000 grinder and other equipment typically found at high-end coffee shops.

"Customers can be skeptical the first time they hear about getting coffee from a van, but then they see the equipment that we use and they taste our latté, cappuccino, mocha or chai," said Scott Bundy, president and CEO of Cafe2U USA. "It doesn't take more than a sip to turn a lot of people into regulars."

Read more about operations management.