We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claire Oksayan . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claire below.
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.
The Rush Coffee is a mobile coffee house providing friendly and quick coffee to neighbors, businesses and at events located throughout San Diego County. Established in 2016 as a family and locally-owned business by Claire & Parsegh Oksayan, The Rush Coffee’s mission is to literally put the best coffee shop delights, drinks and eats at the fingertips of customers no matter where they might be. With the strong belief in the power of community, The Rush Coffee sources their coffee locally, serves locally and gives back locally.
Claire started working as a barista in college at a small drive-thru coffee shop in Encinitas, CA and remembers the feeling that for a single moment in time, she could make the best cup of coffee that could make someone’s day special. She was always challenging herself to make drinks faster and better and to bring a moment of joy to her customers each morning. The dream of owning her own coffee shop grew and grew as she moved on to other careers. Fast forward a few years (or decades) and the dream resurfaced. Desiring more time with family and a change of pace, she began chasing down that dream – she just never realized it would be on wheels! Crazy ideas coupled with our skills make for brilliant experiences!
Now The Rush Coffee operates 4 trucks across San Diego County and Austin, TX with 2 more trucks on the way and offers a franchise opportunity that allows other people to realize their dream of owning their own business.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Every day is about resilience when you’re in business for yourself. There have been days when I get to the coffee truck and am ready to go work, just to find that my generator isn’t working and we have to either make it work or reschedule our business for the day. Or the time when the espresso machine just stopped working in the middle of one of our busiest yearly events and we had to limp along the rest of the day with whatever drinks we could make without espresso. Or how about the time when we had a new franchisee about to purchase her new van to have it built out and the dealership put a stop sale on it the day before she was to sign the documents due to a recall order, delaying the whole deal by 2 months. Or when we were on our way from landing a new event and got rear-ended on the freeway and had the truck in the body shop for the next month, unable to start the new gig.
Each one of those instances has been an opportunity to either quit or to demonstrate perseverance and hope. We have to continually remind ourselves of 2 very important truths – we would rather be doing this than anything else in the world, and at the end of the day it’s just coffee (or as my dad would say “nobody died”). Keeping that perspective has been the difference between our successful 6 years and other businesses just not making it.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
When we started, I worked as a director level in a full-time corporate/non-profit job – and this was before the days of remote work, so I was out of the house every morning by 7am and not back until 6pm, depending on traffic. I had great pay and great benefits for my whole family, but I just couldn’t do that job anymore and needed something of my own. Once the coffee truck was built and ready to get to work, I started booking it just on the weekends to get my feet wet. I remember my very first day of work was so nerve-racking. Here I have a fully built and outfitted coffee truck but I don’t know where to take it to get business. So I drove it directly across the street from where we kept it parked to a city park on a Saturday morning, and prayed for business. We ended up having a $200 sales day on our very first day out! Not long after that we were invited to some larger community events on the weekends.
Very quickly this side-hustle demanded more time and I had to take PTO on Fridays from my regular job so I could take on additional coffee truck business. I had intended to do this part-time for much longer, but within 3 months the business demanded 4 or 5 days a week. It was time to rip the bandaid and take the leap of faith from my secure job to this uncertain future. By the time I left my full-time job, the coffee truck was booked at least 5 days a week. Since those early days, it’s been harder to schedule days off with my family than it is to schedule days on with work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.therushcoffee.com
- Instagram: TheRushCoffee
- Facebook: TheRushCoffeeTruck