I'm a former Broadway actress turned entrepreneur. Here's how I run my coffee shop on wheels, which did $186K in sales this year, while working another job.
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Jackie Nguyen was an actress and dancer in Broadway shows until the pandemic shut down her tour.
She found a new passion in coffee and opened Cafe Cà Phê, a coffee-shop truck, in July 2020.
Nguyen walked Insider through her typical day running her business and working a part-time job.
Jackie Nguyen was an actress and dancer for 12 years, most recently in the national touring Broadway production of "Miss Saigon." She lived in New York City, but her shows took her all over the country.
But in 2019, she desired more purpose.
"I spent so much time on the road, and I loved it," she said. "But I felt like I really wanted to do something different that was just more than a line on a résumé."
While on the road, Nguyen, 33, also worked as a language consultant, teaching actors how to speak Vietnamese, and she spoke to the press about the show. "It made me feel like I have other qualities and other passions that are untapped in me," she said.
Nguyen considered her days as a Starbucks barista in high school and college, and she wondered whether she could open her own coffee shop. She began talking to coffee-shop owners in the cities where she performed about what it was like, what equipment to use, and how lucrative the business could be.
When the lights went down on stages across the US because of the pandemic, it was Nguyen's chance to turn her passion project into a full-time commitment. "I truly did not know when I could go back to theater," she said. "So I started working on my business plan."
Today, Nguyen is the owner of Cafe Cà Phê, a coffee shop on wheels in Kansas City, Missouri, that brews Vietnamese coffee. The company made $186,850 in 2021 sales as of September, Insider verified with documentation, and had more than 14,000 followers on Instagram at the time of writing. "It's definitely become a much bigger vision than just a coffee shop," Nguyen said.
Soon, Nguyen plans to move to a retail location in a neighborhood that's home to many Vietnamese refugees. "I wanted to stay truthful to who I am, so I'm very conscious about my shop being a platform for Asians and for marginalized communities," she said.
Nguyen shared a typical day in her life with Insider, where she runs her coffee shop while working a remote, part-time job.
The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I wake up at 6 a.m.
Nguyen stores milk and creamer in an industrial kitchen across the street from her truck.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
I'm usually bad at eating, so I'll try to grab a granola bar or banana in the morning. Sometimes I get too busy to eat, to be honest.
I have a doughnut vendor that's also a small business, so I pick up doughnuts from there every other day. I drive 20 minutes to the doughnut shop, pick up doughnuts, then I go next door to the Walmart to pick up cartons of milk and bags of ice for the shifts that day.
I'll get six or seven big bags of ice because we don't have an ice-maker. A food truck is small, so you can only store so much. Then I drive to my cart.
At 7:30 a.m. I set up the shop.
Nguyen's mobile coffee shop, Cafe Ca Phe
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
Another employee and I get to the cart at about 7:15 or 7:30 a.m. We set up the outside and inside of the truck.
Then we have to go to a kitchen across the street that we're temporarily using to get our prep done. Then we set up the speaker, register, doughnuts, and snacks, as well as turn on the coffee.
I have to manually fill the truck with five-gallon jugs of water, which is not fun.
We open the coffee truck at 8 a.m.
Nguyen serves customers from inside the truck.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., I serve coffee from the truck. In between customers, I post on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook.
I do all of the social media. I bring my laptop into the truck, and I do my other job.
I work 30 to 40 hours remotely for another company.
Cafe Ca Phe founder Jackie Nguyen
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
I have a corporate job doing branding and marketing that I spend about 30 to 40 hours a week doing. So I do my work in between customers when there's downtime. I also respond to emails and DMs for my business.
For lunch, it depends on who's working. Sometimes we grab tacos down the street, get a cup of noodles, or get Chipotle delivered to us. But it depends on how busy we are.
Around 3:30 p.m. we pack up the truck.
Some days Nguyen and her team get burritos for lunch.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
We manually dump all the dirty water. We put away everything and lock everything up because it's outside, and we don't want any theft to happen. We've had break-ins before.
Then we go across the street, do all the dishes, and put away the stock.
At about 5 p.m. I prep for the next day.
Cafe Ca Phe hosts pop-up events on the weekends.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
I have an hour to prep for either the next day or an event, if we have one.
We do a pop-up event every weekend, which means we have our cart parked in the lot we're at now. Sometimes we have two other staff members set up a table at different events and serve coffee to get our name and our coffee out there.
I make the coffee and stock the bins with our merch, and I prepare tables and trash cans that need to be done for our pop-up events. Then I'll load it into my van and go home.
I get home by 7:30 p.m.
Cafe Ca Phe brews Vietnamese coffee beans.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
On my way home, I might load up on oat milk and lemonade at Costco. When I get home, I make dinner. I usually try to cook dinner myself, or I'll have a salad or some chicken.
On Wednesdays, I have an hour of therapy.
Since I usually work on weekends, Mondays and Tuesdays are technically my days off from the shop.
One of my favorite things to do is to walk around Target or T.J. Maxx with my headphones in. I might call my best friend or listen to music, then I'll grab a smoothie. It's my little me time. If I sit at home, I'm tempted to work or clean.
I work on social-media posts from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m.
One of Cafe Ca Phe's signature drinks is the "Hella Good Latte" made with Vietnamese espresso and ube, a purple sweet potato from Southeast Asia.
Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen
At night I draft social-media posts for the next day and schedule any meetings and pop-ups for the next week. I try to go to sleep by 12:30 or 1 a.m.
