A Creative Risk Helped This Coffee Entrepreneur Reinvigorate His Business

"I think one of the hardest parts of being an entrepreneur is losing sight of that creative, entrepreneurial spirit along the way," says Dustin Cronsier, owner of Green Bus Cafe, one of our favorite coffee pop-ups in town. "Your creativity gets muddled with the rest of the work, which makes tackling challenges and risks almost impossible."

Housed in a lime-green 1975 VW Microbus, Cronsier launched the Green Bus Cafe in 2021. But as he tried to figure out a way to fit his mobile coffee business into the tight parameters of the busy summer market scene, he had to get creative.

"We were just spending too much time making drinks, and our line just kept getting longer," Cronsier says of his previous experience at the City Park Farmers Market. "We wanted to find ways to streamline our process and grow the Green Bus."

After Cronsier found out he had a second interview to become a vendor for the 2023 South Pearl Street Farmers Market season, he knew he'd have to adapt and innovate in order to meet the needs of the crowded and highly demanding market. The Green Bus was too big to fit in between neighboring tents on South Pearl, so he needed something smaller.
He'd purchased a cargo trailer a few years back as a back-pocket project for himself and his friends, and he planned to use it for storing items for camping adventures and long road trips. But after Green Bus Cafe took off, the trailer sat forgotten in the back of Cronsier's garage. "For a long time, I was looking to get rid of it. It seemed pointless to keep it in my garage collecting dust," he says.

Right before the big interview, Cronsier recalls going to check all of his espresso equipment in the van, having just made it through a long winter. "Nothing would work," Cronsier says. His espresso setup had completely broken, and not even a drip of the cafe's classic Delgona Latte would flow from the mouth of the machine.

But he did have another espresso machine for personal use, which led to a lightbulb moment: Would it fit in the trailer?

Luckily, it did. Cronsier also packed the trailer with oat milk and a plethora of syrups, creating a setup that made slinging coffee easy. He presented the idea to the South Pearl Street Farmers Market vendor board and, although the trailer hadn't gotten its vibrant green paint job yet, the group loved its potential and approved Green Bus Mini for the 2023 season, which kicked off in May.

At both the Pearl Street and City Park markets, the trailer is set up weekly underneath a matching tent, drawing a steady line. "The Mini has helped us scale up our drinks and focus on serving more of our customers," Cronsier notes.

Although he admits that he's struggled with burnout in the last two years, Cronsier says that launching Green Bus Mini was exactly the type of creative risk he needed to reinvigorate his business. "You can't tackle challenges without creativity, and you can't channel your creativity when you are constantly burned out. If I didn't take the big risk of trying out the trailer as a Green Bus extension, then we wouldn't have made it to South Pearl, and we wouldn't be able to work on other projects," he adds, hinting at more news to come soon.

Find Green Bus Mini at the City Park Farmers Market from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and at South Pearl Street Farmers Market from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, visit greenbuscafe.com.