Our Food Truck History
We have been serving coffee to the people of the Springfield area for the last 16+ years. Though our business hasn’t always looked like it does today we have always had two consistent things. Coffee & Food Trucks. When we got started in the coffee business we primarily sold to individuals via home deliveries and Farmers’ Markets. We hauled a tent, tables, displays, and product in a car to several markets! This is how we ended up getting our first coffee trailer. It allowed us to pack our market equipment into one place and haul the trailer around without having to load and unload the car every day. The picture on the right is one of the first setups we had. We used the trailer to haul our display and products, then when we got to the market we would unload and set up under a tent. This setup was a lot better than unloading a car because it allowed us to use a pre-stocked rolling cart that rolled in and out of the trailer. The biggest downside to this setup was the exposure to weather. Standing under a tent in inclement weather is not ideal. We realized we could sell a wider variety of products if we moved into a food truck.
We served coffee at some events and quickly realized that we could expand into something more. We got our first food truck. This truck, along with the others we would get in the future, was manufactured by Grumman. Since this was our first truck, we called it “G1”. G1 would go to markets and we would sell bags of beans, hot coffee, smoothies, and biscuits & gravy. After designing the first truck we realized we could do better. We sold G1 and upgraded to G2.
You might remember G2 from our days at the Greater Springfield Farmers’ Market in the 2010’s. G2 was a bright red truck that parked at the corner of Battlefield and Glenstone every Saturday. We ran our power off of generators. These generators were quite heavy and difficult to move. So we found G3. G3 featured a Tommy Lift Gate at the back that made moving generators much easier. Around this time we had been attending every Saturday Farmers’ Market for close to a decade.
After attending regularly on weekends we decided to take a break from the Farmers’ Market, to put our time into expanding our wholesale and online markets. We continued doing festivals and summer events, but without the weekly use we decided to get rid of the food truck. We ended up going back to a trailer, which we were able to park inside a garage. By this time we had a much better layout for the trailer. This is our trailer in 2016. In this photo we were at Pumpkin Daze in Republic, MO. This trailer worked for awhile, but a few years later we started ramping up our event schedule.
Introducing “The Silver Slug”. The Silver Slug was very similar to the previous food trucks but it didn’t like hills. One of the first events we did with the truck was in Branson, and its slow uphill speed gave it its name. In this photo we are at Pumpkin Daze a year later. We kept this truck for a while, doing various events around the area. At this point we had gone through several different food trucks and trailers, building out each one ourselves. 
We decided we were going to keep this one for a long time so we decided to get a full copper wrap done on it. This made the truck very recognizable and it looked amazing. Unfortunately The Silver Slug was retired due to its slow travel speeds. We wanted something that could travel easily no matter where we wanted to go.
…so we got a trailer. If you’ve seen us at an event recently within the past few years this is the trailer we were using. With this trailer we attended several fall festivals, monthly 417 Coffee and Cars events, back to school events, and many more. The trailer was very easy to move around and it worked well for production. Its biggest downfall was the lack of storage. Especially at summer events, it is very important for us to have ice. With the trailer, we typically had to have another storage vehicle for backup ice and cups. While this system worked for us, we thought it would be more convenient if we…
got a truck. We got this truck in June of 2023. So far we have taken it to a few local events, a Fourth of July event, 417 Coffee and Cars, and the Farmers’ Market. After all these years, we decided to go back to our roots and sell at the Greater Springfield Farmers’ Market. We now sell our bags of coffee along with drinks such as iced lattes, lemonade, and hot coffee. We will have the truck at the market every Saturday except the first of the month. On the first Saturday of each month (April-October), you can find us at 417 Coffee and Cars. For the 2023 season, Coffee and Cars is located at the Second Baptist Church on Battlefield Rd (Springfield, MO). You can see a list of our upcoming events here! We hope you are able to come out and see us at some of our events!
If you are hosting an event feel free to contact us for our availability. We have a special event inquiry form at the bottom of our events page.