Tri-Cities coffee trailer destroyed. Other small businesses rally to help
One small Tri-Cities business has been crushed — literally — one month after it finished an expansion.
Over the weekend, a driver crashed into Jessica and Joel Grubbs’ newly finished coffee trailer, Transient Coffee, parked in front of their house.
“This was brand new. We literally passed the health inspection Aug. 3 and a month to the date this happened,” Joel Grubbs told the Herald. The business license was approved in July.
The pair started roasting coffee in a space rented from Rockabilly Roasting Co. in downtown Kennewick a couple of years ago. They sold beans online and at farmers markets throughout Tri-Cities.
With a vision to expand and make coffee Jessica’s full time job, they dumped their savings — along with borrowed money and credit card debt — into a mobile coffee trailer.
The Grubbs got the trailer up and running by sweating through the summer doing all the work themselves with the help of friends.
“We used all our savings to build this thing,” Joel Grubbs said. “We did it knowing that it will pay for itself. We busted our butts and built this thing, and now we’re basically in debt for something we can’t pay for.”
A Gofundme.com was created by friends to help them recoup the debt. Grubbs has insurance coverage, and they’re waiting to see what the driver’s insurance will pay, but it will be months before it is sorted out.
“We are OK as far as personal finances. I don’t want to think we are down and out,” Grubbs said. “This is not a story about us as a personally as a family — it is a story of small business”
Transient Coffee had done about five events with the new trailer, and Joel Grubs was working on bookings through the end of the year.
The pair had recently signed a contract to be the coffee vendor for events at the HAPO Center in Pasco and was starting food truck events around town.
“Our first time at the West Richland event was supposed to be this week,” Grubbs said of a regular food and drink event at Flat Top Park.
Now the truck likely is totaled, he said.
The equipment such as the espresso machine seems fine, but the trailer is what literally took the hit — the water tanks were busted, as was the hitch that broke off the trailer. Cabinets flew off the hinges and the front end of the trailer hit the ground.
“We don’t know if we want to rebuild this thing by ourselves,” he said.
But even if they had insurance money today, companies that build out food trucks are booked six to eight month out because of the increase demand during the pandemic, Grubbs said.
However, friends insisted on creating a fundraiser and people throughout the community have been rallying around them. Grubbs said that his wife was getting an usually large number of orders for whole coffee beans, which can be hand delivered throughout Tri-Cities.
“That’s been the biggest shock — how the community rallies around small businesses and how small business rally around small businesses,” he said.
Online: transientcoffeecompany.com