We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cassie Lopez & Mallory Kincaid. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cassie Lopez below.

Alright, Cassie Lopez thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I (Cassie) founded The Wandering Wagon, and for the first three seasons, I ran the business solo. In those early days, I was at nearly event, supported by two bartenders who rotated shifts with me. It was exciting, but also exhausting—and by the end of our second season, I was completely burnt out.

As we approached season three, I knew something had to change if I wanted to take The Wandering Wagon full time. Letting go of control over each individual event was terrifying, your business really does feel like your baby, but it was necessary. In 2022, we booked over 50 events, and with multiple events happening on the same day, I physically couldn’t be at them all. That was the first year I trained lead bartenders to run events independently, and while it was a big leap, it set us up for the following season.

Behind the scenes, I started streamlining systems and dialing in our processes to make the events as smooth as possible for the team. While the events were definitely running smoothly I was still burnt out on all of the behind the scenes planning, logistics, and event prep.

In 2023, everything changed when I brought Mallory on as my co-owner. We booked over 100 events that season and started to really refine how we operated. We hired support for juicing, garnishes, and even someone to keep our aprons clean and ironed—those little things made a huge difference in our day-to-day. It was also so nice to not feel so alone, being a solo-preneur is hard!

The biggest challenge we faced that year was space—we were growing fast and had weekends of 4-8 events. So in 2024, we took the leap and moved into a large warehouse of our own. We improved our organization even more, implemented a staff management system, and hired a full-time operations manager to help keep everything running smoothly.

Now, heading into 2025, we feel incredibly grounded. We have an amazing team behind the scenes, a crew of seasoned bartenders who’ve been with us for multiple seasons, and a well-organized onboarding system that sets new hires up for success. The thing that once felt so daunting—scaling—has become one of our biggest strengths.

We know how overwhelming this part of the mobile bar journey can be, so we created a detailed eBook all about scaling your mobile bar business. It’s exactly the resource I wish I’d had when I was starting out—and we hope it helps other mobile bar owners grow with a little more confidence and a lot less burnout.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We’re Cassie and Mallory, best friends and co-owners of The Wandering Wagon, a mobile bartending company based in Denver, Colorado.

We both started out as middle school teachers, but in May of 2022, we went full-time and we’ve never looked back! Weddings are our specialty because we love the creativity they inspire, but we’re here for any kind of private event.

Our fleet includes a camper bar, a converted horse trailer bar, satellite bars, and we’re equally at home working at venues with a built-in bar setup. Outside of our mobile bars we’re known for our garden to glass drinks—think hand-squeezed juices, house-made syrups, and fresh, seasonal ingredients. Every drink on our menu is crafted to look just as good as it tastes.

Inclusivity is the heart of our business. It’s incredibly important to us that our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ couples feel seen, celebrated, and safe when working with us. Everyone is welcome at our bar—including those who don’t drink alcohol. Our mocktail options are every bit as thoughtful, balanced, and delicious as our cocktails, so there’s always something fresh and fun in every glass.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Back in 2018, I (Cassie) moved to Denver and landed a job teaching middle school in Denver Public Schools. Unfortunately, the school culture was incredibly toxic—teachers were quitting left and right. By winter break, we were down to half our staff, which left the rest of us even more overworked and underpaid than teachers already are. I knew I needed a way out, and that’s when The Wandering Wagon was born in 2019.

That same year, I transferred to a new school, and that’s where I met Mallory. Apparently, the word going around was that I was going to be a super strict, no-nonsense teacher who was completely obsessed with my craft—not exactly someone who seemed fun or approachable. But Mallory still gave me a chance! She welcomed me with open arms and invited me to lunch with her and a few other teachers during those first few weeks.

One day in the copy room, I blurted out that I wanted to leave teaching—shocking Mallory after all she’d heard about how intense I was supposed to be. I told her about The Wandering Wagon and that my dream was to go full time with it. She looked at me and said, “No one wants to leave teaching more than me—do not leave me behind!”

At first, we started brainstorming ways for her to start a business of her own, but those conversations eventually led to us co-founding Wild Social Micro Weddings. After running Wild Social together for a few years, I knew without a doubt that we made an incredible team with perfectly complementary strengths and strong communication skills from being educators. So, in 2023, I officially asked her to join me as co-owner of The Wandering Wagon.

Now we own and operate both businesses side-by-side, and it’s been incredible, we literally still can’t believe this is real life. We’ve even hired my younger sister full time—turning this into a true family (and friendship) affair.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

We both officially left teaching in May of 2022—and it’s still one of the most exciting and emotional days of our lives.

When we started talking seriously about leaving education, we knew we needed to be strategic. Our goal was to match our teaching salaries before we walked away from the classroom, so we gave ourselves a little more padding than some business owners might. We also wanted to finish the school year—for our students, our coworkers, and our own peace of mind—so even though we turned in our resignations in February, we stayed through the end of the school year. That also allowed us collect our summer pay.

We made ourselves a promise: once we had over three months of our salaries saved in our business bank account, we would commit 100% to entrepreneurship for at least three months—no backup plans, no job applications, just total focus. That was the best decision we could’ve made. Giving it our all without the safety net helped our businesses grow quickly and gain serious momentum.

Not long after leaving the classroom, we were able to increase our pay—and now, we make more than double what we earned as teachers. But the real win? The time freedom. We are truly grateful for the control of our schedules every single day.

Of course, being in the wedding industry means dealing with seasonality, and that first off-season was tough financially. To help support ourselves year-round, we created a line of products that we now sell at a large holiday market every winter. With three full-time salaries on the line (including our operations manager) and the overhead of our warehouse, finding a way to diversify our revenue was key to staying full time and continuing to grow sustainably.

Leaving teaching was scary—but looking back, it was exactly the leap we needed. And we’re so proud of our little team and our not so little businesses!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wanderingwagonbars.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderingwagonbars/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wanderingwagonbars

Image Credits

All photos by @chelseabeamerphotography