The not-so-mobile bicycle cart Chris O\u2019Brien started out with remains the cornerstone of his brick-and-mortar coffee shop, Coffee Cycle, which just marked its fifth anniversary in Pacific Beach.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a road less-well-traveled for the small-business entrepreneur. O\u2019Brien spent seven years learning the barista craft at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, before striking out on his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce at the end of a shift, I invited a couple of my co-workers over to my house where I had 10 bikes in my living room,\u201d recalled O\u2019Brien of Coffee Cycle\u2019s origin. \u201cIt was a joke that I ought to put a cafe on the back of one of those bikes. I woke up the next morning and began sketching it.\u201d
\nThe coffee connoisseur took three years to perfect a functioning, mobile coffee cart. Afterward, for nine months, O\u2019Brien drove his homemade mobile coffee cart to Pacific Highway south of Fiesta Island close to Old Town. There, he worked a stretch of self-described \u201cnowhere road,\u201d catering primarily to cyclists.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like a beached whale,\u201d said O\u2019Brien of his old coffee cart, which he still serves from daily and vows never to take out on the road again. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t roll well \u2014 but it rolls. It moves with the speed of a guy with a cane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, O\u2019Brien found just the right permanent stop along the way at 1632 Grand Ave. And pairing bikes and beans has turned out to be a winning combo for the New Jersey native who came to San Diego via Cleveland,\u00a0where he went to college and got his first taste of coffee brewing.<\/p>\n
Coffee Cycle is aptly named, as O\u2019Brien has never driven a car once his entire life \u2013 and has never had a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n
Every day is a klatch, a social gathering for conversation while drinking coffee, at Coffee Cycle. And you\u2019ll find O\u2019Brien in his customary spot: standing behind the counter\u00a0next to his cart serving up his favorite brew while mingling with customers, local and not, who constantly cycle through his small-but-intimate shop.<\/p>\n
These days, O\u2019Brien is becoming more heavily involved with direct-trade coffee, a term for coffee roasters who buy straight from their growers, thus cutting out both the traditional middleman buyers and sellers, as well as the organizations that control certifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat way we know they (growers) get 100% of the money and have these nice transparent supply chains,\u201d said O\u2019Brien, \u201cIt\u2019s just a really nice, unique way to build that relationship and do international trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien pointing out that, while the price of coffee beans has risen, \u201cShockingly, coffee is somehow inflation-proof,\u201d he said, adding the highest price coffee has ever traded at was in 1979. Coffee is now being traded on the commodity market at around $2.40 per pound. \u201cThat\u2019s not much higher than it was 10 years ago,\u201d O\u2019Brien said adding, \u201cYet, everything else is pretty significantly higher than it was 10 years ago \u2013 milk, eggs, wheat, oil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seems like you\u2019ve built a unique niche here. True?<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately for me, I\u2019m not the first person with this idea,\u201d responded O\u2019Brien. \u201cThere is already a lot of crossover between cycling and coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is that? \u201cIt\u2019s the social aspect,\u201d answered O\u2019Brien. \u201cPeople like going to a coffee shop to interact with each other. Connection with other people is really where the crossover happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien admitted there\u2019s a lot more involved in operating a coffee shop than he expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot more challenging \u2013 and stressful than a lot of people envision it to be,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought when I opened, that all I would need to know would be coffee. And I thought I also needed to know some stuff about bikes. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d also need to be a plumber, an electrician, a woodworker, and a commercial lease negotiator. Having all that on your shoulders all the time is a lot for almost anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
What advice would O\u2019Brien give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?<\/p>\n
\u201cIn running a business you trust systems, rather than trusting people,\u201d he concluded. \u201cIf you build a system around what a person can do for you, or what you can do for your business, then you\u2019re always able to be flexible and adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n
COFFEE CYCLE<\/p>\n
Where: 1632 Grand Ave.<\/p>\n
Contacto: coffeecycleroasting.com<\/a>, @coffeecycleroasting<\/a>, 951-363-3066, general coffee questions:<\/p>\n chris@coffee-cycle.com<\/a>; events, collaborations, or wholesale requests: ryan@coffee-cycle.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The not-so-mobile bicycle cart Chris O\u2019Brien started out with remains the cornerstone of his brick-and-mortar coffee shop, Coffee Cycle, which just marked its fifth anniversary in Pacific Beach. It\u2019s been a road less-well-traveled for the small-business entrepreneur. O\u2019Brien spent seven years learning the barista craft at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, before striking out on his […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":315125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"The not-so-mobile bicycle cart Chris O\u2019Brien started out with remains the cornerstone of his brick-and-mortar coffee shop, Coffee Cycle, which just marked its fifth anniversary in Pacific Beach.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11547],"tags":[14127,14126,12543],"class_list":["post-315124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-features","tag-bird-rock-coffee-roasters","tag-coffee-cycle","tag-pacific-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}