Butternut Road Coffee Truck, not your average cup of coffee
Located in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the Butternut Road Coffee Truck has been on the road serving customers at venues in Spring Green and throughout the Driftless area.
Butternut offers locals and visitors alike, specialty coffee and baked goods created with organic ingredients that are sourced locally and sustainably. This allows customers a chance to enjoy great coffee and baked goods outdoors, rather than having to going into the traditional brick and mortar.
Hitting the road this past Spring, entrepreneur/owner Samantha Sveum has quite a background. Originally from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Sam as she prefers to be called, attended University of Wisconsin-Platteville, obtaining a degree in Civil Engineering, and soon after graduating, started working in the field. Times would eventually change, but for the better of course.
While working her engineering job, Sam was also bartending. Not necessarily enjoying the hours or having a passion for beer or liquor, the appeal to her was the customer service aspect of bartending. Sam is a people person and as she put it, “I love to talk”. This set the stage for her future.
“You know, could I see myself being an engineer for the rest of my life? And the answer honestly was no. I could maybe see some places that I could move in a company, but I just didn't see myself being happy with doing that,” she said. It seemed that Sam enjoyed interacting with and serving others on a more personal level.
Sam, having managed a coffee shop while attending college, originally entertained an idea of opening up a coffee shop in Spring Green. After deciding that was an unrealistic move, she found herself looking at coffee truck businesses as an alternative. “So, I started looking at other avenues. I started doing some research. I came across some really cool coffee trucks out there across the country. I got really sold on this idea of opening up my own coffee truck.”
Noting that coffee trucks are quite common in Europe, and in the states and seem to be very popular in California, there was one coffee truck located in South Dakota that as Sam put it, “really set it off” for her. “That truck in South Dakota, had a very similar idea that I wanted to follow of supporting local, but popping around to a whole bunch of different events. Not necessarily being a truck that sets up at one place every single week. I wanted to be something that was active. I did some research on other coffee trucks that are out there, and there's one other in Wisconsin that I'm aware of in Milwaukee.”
Sam liked the idea of having the ability to travel around to other areas and provide coffee services to not just Spring Green, but to other areas in and around the Wisconsin Driftless area. Giving her the advantage of catering directly to businesses, events, and parties, while servicing coffee demands in between.
After settling down on the idea of a coffee truck, Sam set out to work. “It took me five months of actual business planning, listening to lots of podcasts, doing a lot of different things before I decided that I was ready to quit my engineering job.” She found herself juggling planning her new business around working five days a week at her engineering job and bartending. “Usually when I got home, I was writing my business plan and busting my butt for five months before deciding I was going to do this.”
At the end of February, right before the pandemic hit, Sam had quit her engineering job. Soon after, she took a trip out to Colorado, and when she came back, everything was shut down. “I had a bit of a freak-out when I had just quit my full-time job to start my own business in the middle of a pandemic. But that didn’t sway me. I got my truck and did seven total months of retrofitting it. Most of the work me and my fiancé did, from gutting it out to doing the outside.” Sam’s fiancé, a plumber, put in all of the plumbing and continues to be her maintenance guy on the truck. “The physical aspects of it he helps me where he can. He sees me running around like a chicken with my head cut off some days. He does what he can to help it. But it’s mostly just me, which is why I’m motivated to hire some people in the future,” she said.
“That was a cool experience honestly. I knew that was going to be tough, but I had no idea how tough that was going to be. I should have clocked out the actual hours it took me, but I believe it took me three weeks of sanding every single day to get most of it done and then I still had to come back and do some finishing touches.”
Sam said the inside was where you would see most of the magic happen. “We completely reframed up the walls inside. I mean if you saw the pictures of it, it's just completely different. It's like pristine beautiful white walls, white ceilings, and a wooden floor now instead of junky, rusty metal and dirty one. I have to remind myself somedays what it used to look like to see how far we've come. I’m proud of all the work I’ve done.”
Sam’s fiancé is from Spring Green which drew her to the community. “I met him seven years ago. Actually, I met him in Eau Claire, which was my hometown, and I was in school in Platteville at the time. I had been commuting to Spring Green most weekends to see him. I fell in love with the area. I told him in the beginning, I would never move somewhere for a guy unless I really liked the area,” she said with a chuckle. “I love Spring Green; I've just fallen in love with it.”
She continued, “The community here is amazing, the area's amazing. I always tell people it's crazy, because in Eau Claire, you'd think with a city like that you'd always have something to go do, and that's not necessarily the case. It's a big city that if you ever need something there's a place to go get it. Here in Spring Green I find more things to do. There are more events, there's more of an art community. They're always being creative and putting things on. There's the river, you can just go out on the river it's a great place!”
With leaving one career and starting up a new business, I asked Sam if anyone in her family had inspired her to become an entrepreneur. “Nobody in my family. I'm the first in my family to own a business. My fiancé actually owns his own business and I think I kind of got it from him. Just watching him being able to make the calls with his business, and I even saw that not so pretty side of it, of having to work basically all of the time. It just seemed so rewarding to me.”
Now, about Sam’s products. Being a strong supporter of local and small businesses, the Butternut Coffee Truck has accomplished just that. “The coffee that I have right now comes from JBC Coffee Roasters in Madison. They are just incredible; their products are just out of this world. I also use Brewhaha Roasters right here in Spring Green.”
Brewed and bottled by Sam, Butternut Road Coffee Truck’s signature cold brew drinks are typically brewed using Brewhaha beans because of the great flavors that they produce in a cold brew. Sam noted regular orders for delivery of her cold brew are becoming a favorite choice for her customers both new and repeat.
Offering a variety of baked goods to compliment the coffee, Sam carries products from Quality Bakery in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. “They are a very well-known and amazing bakery. They've been in business now for 93 years and still maintain their simple storefront. They are good quality people with good quality donuts. They are just awesome. Sidney Bakes is another baker I use. I get cookies, muffins, cinnamon rolls, all kinds of things from her. She has a storefront here in Spring Green.”
Despite the hardships of opening during a pandemic, Sam had a great response. “I'd say for two weeks I sought out businesses, and pretty much after that it just exploded. It actually started more because I started doing a cold brew delivery service before my truck was ready. I just wanted to make to get my name out there, getting people excited about the truck starting up. I started having requests when I would deliver cold brews. It literally was two weeks into it when my messages on my phone just started buzzing off the hook, it was just insane and hasn’t slowed down since.”
Currently, Sam runs a one-person business when it comes to delivering her products and setting up at different venues. But she has vision. “I hope to expand. You know, whether that be in a direction of getting another truck and trying to franchise. I'm not sure about that one but I would like to. I just want to grow, whether that be in products, potentially having products pop up in local stores, and the potential of having another truck in the future. I mean, we definitely have enough events happening that I think finding events for two trucks would be good in this area.”
Seemingly able to change gears on a moment's notice and accommodate the hardships of dealing with a pandemic, Sam had this advice to others thinking about opening up a business. “It would be honestly the same advice I'd give them if we weren't in a pandemic. It would be to just stay flexible, to listen to people, listen to your customers. Then just have the ability to change at a moment's notice. Because that's going to help with anything. I mean, this year, it might be a pandemic. We could be going through a recession, there could be other things that pop up, you know, being able to be flexible and bend to with anything that life throws at you. I think that's the most important thing. And it's not easy, it is definitely something that scares me and my business setup already. My business works with the current situation that we have because I can do the social distancing, being outside, things like that. But there are still elements of this that I've had to just be willing to listen in order to make it work.”
Sam stressed that Butternut Road Coffee Truck is all about local, especially given what's going on right now with a pandemic and said, “It’s just really important for me. I am a local small business and so I appreciate every bit of support that I get to my business. We're gonna set the karma, I am all about supporting local businesses because I know that people are giving right back to me.”
Butternut is very community driven. Sam is always looking to do what she can to support local businesses, whether advertising for them on her social media, being there buying their goods, or carrying products and drinks on her truck. “I’m just all about it,” Sam said.
“I get asked all the time where the name “Butternut Road” comes from, so I thought I would take a minute and explain the meaning behind this name. No, I don’t just realllly like the squash.
It’s the name of the road that I currently reside on. My fiancé and I built our place on this beautiful windy rural road about 2 years ago.
But the name for the coffee truck is about more than geography. This is the first place that has felt like “home” since the house I grew up in.
I’ve popped around from different apartments, college houses and dorms since leaving my childhood home; this is the first spot that hasn’t been temporary, or just passing through. My fiancé and I plan to build our life here.
Butternut Road Coffee Truck has a mission of serving up coffee and smiles, and supporting local communities; it only seemed fitting that the name behind the biz also represented a love for where I live.”
-From a recent post on Butternut Road Coffe Truck’s Facebook page.
For more information on the Butternut Coffee Truck, visit them on Facebook or their website.
Editor’s note: A percentage of each purchase from the Butternut Road Coffee Truck is donated to a local charity.
