We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachael Lomeli and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachael, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I remember the first time I wanted to be a barista. I was 18 attending college and the campus coffee shop was hiring. I remember the coffee shop was where everyone went to hang out. I saw people become friends, couples going on first dates, students studying, parents catching up with their kids over a cup of coffee, and students make late night trips to get a cup of coffee to make it through finals week. It was here I realized that coffee cultivated conversation and relationship. This led me to work for coffee shops for the last seven years of my life and i soon realized i wanted to have a successful coffee business. This led me to today and to Heritage Coffee Cart. Mine and my husband’s dream for starting Heritage was to develop a specialty coffee experience that could be catered to virtually every space! Our cart has a LaMarzocco Gs3 which can dish out about 50 espresso-based drinks an hour. We essentially took the equipment you would find in your local coffee shop and put it on a cart so that we could go to places to serve coffee. The dream with Heritage is to be events based – think weddings, birthday parties, office spaces, conferences, expos, store openings, real estate open houses, staff appreciation, teacher appreciation, and more! If there’s a reason to celebrate, we want to be a part of it. For us, coffee is about people and making already special moments more memorable by creating an atmosphere for people to cultiave relationships while serving exceptional coffee.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
What sets Heritage apart from other coffee shops is that it’s fully mobile and our cart can fit in almost every space. We actually don’t have a storefront! We get our business via booking our cart. How it works is you give us information about your event like the day and time, how many people we will be serving, where will will be traveling to, and how long you would like us there. We then send a quote and once it is approved and paid we get to work preparing for your event! We make all homemade syrups based on the seasons. We currently offer a blue lavender syrup, vanilla, and cafe de olla syrup. Additionally we partner with other local, Texas-made distributors for our coffee and milk. We LOVE Edison Coffee Co. and use them on espresso and cold brew. For milk, we love to use MillKing. We are most proud of starting a business that we are both passionate about, gifted in, and see ourselves doing for the long haul. This is not just a hobby, but something we want to do in the years and decades to come! We see this being something we do as a family one day and to become an established business with recurring customers. We want people to know that booking our cart is not just purchasing a cup of coffee. When someone books our cart, they are booking an experience. We bring everything that is needed to feel like the cafe experience was brought to you and your guests.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend was in town, I would definitely take her to the Trinity River walkway. It has great views of Dallas, access to food and drinks, and it’s outdoors. I would take her to Davis Street Espresso to try their baked goods and sourdough bread and jam. I would want her to visit Reunion Tower to get a nice view of Dallas from the sky and then go to Mexican Sugar in Uptown. I would walk her through Bishop Arts and all the little shops there where they could get souvenirs or stop at Mod + Jo to pick out some cute jewelry. We would make a stop at Botolino in Bishop and then spend time at the dog park admiring the cute dogs there. Finally, I would take her to the Fort Worth Stockyards to get a real Texas experience with the cattle drive, look at the local shops, and maybe get some cowboy boots!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to thank my husband, Edwin, and sister, Cyndi, for their support and encouragement in the process of starting Heritage. They showed up every time to events, pop-ups, tastings, and late-night prep. I would like to thank my friends Ashlyn and Keana for encouraging me in the process and providing Heritage Coffee Cart with events. I want to thank my dad who was generous enough to help us start Heritage Coffee Cart and believed in my dream to have my own business. He used his own experience from owning his own business to give advice, support, and mentorship. Finally, I am thankful to God for the opportunity to have Heritage Coffee Cart and to use it as a way to bring light and joy to the world.

Website: https://www.heritagecoffeecart.com/

Instagram: @heritagecoffeecart

Facebook: Heritage Coffee Cart, it should be a public page

Image Credits
Credit: Rai Photography and Design

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