For the past two years, Taylor University alumna Avery Amstutz ’19 has been running a coffee shop on wheels—Byway Coffee based in Memphis, Tennessee. An entrepreneur with an adventurous heart, Amstutz has transformed a $6,000 Airstream trailer into a six-figure business.
As a fresh college graduate, running a mobile coffee shop wasn’t something Amstutz set out to do. Graduating from Taylor with a degree in Marketing, Amstutz began her career as an entrepreneur with a wedding photography business. Eventually, Amstutz started a mobile beverage business that catered to private parties. When she saw that her neighbor was selling a 1973 Airstream trailer, she purchased the trailer and began converting it into what would become Byway Coffee.
Amstutz knew very little about coffee when she decided to enter the mobile coffee shop business. She did, however, have a big vision and a heart for starting a business that could bring joy to her community.
“Other people have coffee shops,” Amstutz said, “so why can’t I?” From Amstutz’s point of view, the spirit of entrepreneurship means problem-solving through challenges as they come, and that’s exactly what she did. After consulting friends who owned brick-and-mortar coffee shops and executing a five-figure renovation, Amstutz had a fully functional coffee trailer and was ready to bring her business idea to life.
When Amstutz took Byway Coffee on its first run of the town, several hundred people joined for the grand opening. It was a movement of encouragement that showed her this business was truly something others would find joy in. Since opening day, the business has only grown. The flourishing business expanded from one trailer to two, and it has grown to a team of nearly 20 employees.
As with all business endeavors, running Byway has brought opportunities to learn and grow for Amstutz. During Byway’s first opening, Amstutz and her employees hand-whisked cold foam and matcha—something she quickly realized would not be sustainable, which allowed her to investigate more efficient methods for Byway. From learning opportunities like this to finding strategic places to park to ensuring efficient staffing and inventory, Amstutz has navigated a variety of situations to develop Byway into the best mobile coffee shop possible. Watching all the hard work payoff has been one of her favorite parts of running Byway—that and the close-knit community her business on wheels has grown to be.
Amstutz started Byway Coffee because she saw a need in her community and an opportunity for her to meet it. “That’s what my heart is: to bring people together,” she said, “and that’s what my business is all about.”
Amstutz desires to take this idea and expand Byway in the future, hoping to see it grow to other cities with a bigger network of employees and more trailers.
“Byway Coffee grew by bringing people together to share knowledge and create something the city needed, and more and more people have been brought together as a result,” Amstutz said.
