We were lucky to catch up with Kelli Crosby recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kelli thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
I had been working as a physical therapist for almost 20 years, and had owned a private practice with three friends, for nine of those years when I started realizing that I needed a change. Something that would be more flexible with less intense of a schedule, and less intense of a demand on my hands and wrists. While chatting with a patient who was planning a wedding, she was speaking with me about the wedding venues she was touring and how they were renting the land and a barn, just the space, for a 12 hour period. I thought this was a brilliant business model to own property and rent the space while fulfilling my lifelong dream of owning horses and living on a ranch! So, I started planning my retirement from physical therapy to include selling our house in the city so we could live on a ranch and own a property with a mountain view and a barn that I could rent for weddings. I, of course, started a massive Pinterest board with tons of ideas for a wedding venue, and all of the things I would offer. including – renting adorable campers and horse trailers as mobile bars to the clients that were renting our land and venue, as an add-on to their event.
After 2 potential properties and 2 business plans for a wedding venue business fell through, and with my heart already set on leaving physical therapy, in March 2020, just as the pandemic was getting into full swing, my husband and I decided that I should go for it and just rent the mobile bars…and maybe a wedding venue property would come later (2 more properties have fallen through since 2020, sadly).
I found a 1958 Mercury camper on Facebook marketplace, and rented a vacant barn from a friend, and began to renovate that old camper into a mobile bar! I put in my resignation with my business partners and began the process of being bought out of my private practice shares. I also began writing my business plan for my mobile bar business, but not as someone who wanted to do the bartending, but from a purely rental-only aspect. I knew nothing about party or event rentals. But I did know I had no desire to dive into the art of bartending, nor the liability of bartending. So, I called up an acquaintance at a local beverage catering company, Peak Beverage, and discussed the idea of a mobile bar business that could function purely as a party rental company. He was 100% encouraging, and although he knew of other mobile bars in the area, they were all owned by bartenders, and therefore often had a conflict of interest with catering companies and venues who have in-house staff or exclusive contracts with beverage caterers. As I developed my business plan and concept, I realized that I was fulfilling a niche in the party rental industry and in the beverage catering industry. Plus, having been a business owner in the past, I had experience with creating and executing a business plan and scaling. I began researching everything I could about the event rental industry and researching software that I could use for booking events and tracking rental inventory. The search for commercial insurance led me to find the American Rental Association, which has been a huge help in not only insuring my business and the items I rent, but also educating me about strategies for calculating delivery charges and creating safety measures for my employees and my business. The thing that was 100% new for me was renovating a 1958 camper into a bar!
That was the FUN part! I did tons of research on everything from vintage camper parts, deconstructing and rebuilding the camper, to designing the electrical system, to touring the Peak Beverage facility to learn how bartenders arrange their event bars for efficiency and then applying that knowledge to design the interior of the camper. By August of 2020 the renovation of “Betty” the Camper Bar was well underway when FB Marketplace came through for me again – with a 1962 Cushman Truckster. So, I began the process of turning it into a Tap Truck simultaneously with the camper reno! My sister found a Cushman enthusiast in Parker, CO on a Facebook group, so we went up to meet him and see if he could get the Truckster running better and maybe even do the body work and a paint job. And boy did he come through! Jess John Jensen was a Cushman expert and was already selling used Cushman parts. While we were working together on my Cushman, he even started a new business, Triple J Cushman Restoration! Next, I started researching tap and keg systems, and all things related to tap trucks. My sister and I designed the tap box of my Cushman so it could do more than just have taps. My dad and I built the first tap box configuration, but I’m up to 10 different configurations now, for our Tap Truck “Otho,” including a 6-tap wall configuration with French doors, and a flower truck configuration with 20 French flower buckets! And although much of the work for both bars has been DIY, I’ve had tons of help from amazing friends, family, neighbors and other experts in the community like my welder, the auto body shop that painted the camper and a local RV technician.
Finally, by May of 2021 both bars were completed and I needed photos for marketing and for the website. My buddy Harrison Christopher, a local photographer, came through and we did a photoshoot in May on my friend’s property where we had rented the barn to renovate the camper. I officially launched the website and business in June of 2021. We did a styled shoot and a Bridal Show in June as well, and we had our first paid event in July 2021! It has been a wild ride and I’ve loved every stage of starting and owning this business.
Kelli, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I stumbled into the event rental industry as I was looking for a way to transition out of my career as a physical therapist. I loved being a physical therapist, and the opportunity to help others over my 20 year career was truly a gift. But the daily schedule in the medical profession is intense with patients booked every 30 minutes and charting through lunch and charting for hours at the end of the day and more charting on weekends. Plus, in the medical field, I could never determine my own worth or change my value as my knowledge, skills, and expertise increased because our reimbursement rate was predetermined by insurance contracts such as Medicare, which are often locked at a certain value based on region, not on expertise or years of experience. I found myself longing for more flexibility during the workday, even just to take a bathroom break or get a drink of water. And I was even one of the owners of the company! And I wanted to be in an industry and a business model that could accommodate higher wages, or higher reimbursement for services rendered, without a vote from Congress.
The idea to rent campers and horse trailers as bars came from my research and dream to own and live on a ranch property that I could rent out as a wedding venue. I thought these vintage mobile bars would make a great add-on item for a client, while creating an additional revenue stream apart from the wedding venue and property rental. So far, owning a wedding venue property has not worked out for me, but that idea of renting the vintage mobile bars has been a fun and unexpected path!
Currently, I own 3 vintage mobile bars that I rent out, plus small furniture and décor items. My business model is strictly party and event rental. We do not provide any beverages, consumable items nor beverage catering services. This is an unusual model in the mobile bar sector. Most mobile bars are owned by bartenders that also offer the bartending services, menu planning, and often include hand-pressed juices, craft cocktails and other delicious and incredibly creative custom mixology. It makes me tired just thinking about all that work! As a retired PT, I’m looking for the work smarter not harder model for my retirement business, so I felt very comfortable moving forward with a rental-only model for our bars. Which has been a great decision! Plus, now that my wages and profitability are not reliant on contracts with health insurance companies, I can raise my delivery fee if the cost of gas goes up, or raise the price of a rental item if the market allows for it, all of which allow me to have control over my value and the future of my business.
As a niche party rental company, it allows me to “play in the sandbox with everyone” as I like to say. My bars are welcome at hotel chains and venues that have bartending staff and liquor licenses in house. My bars are used on private property by bartenders and baristas that have their own certifications, licenses and insurance. My bars are used in backyards and in 5-star resorts. And our bars don’t have to serve booze! Our camper has even been a DJ booth for a conference and a pop-up shop for German souvenirs at an Oktoberfest. And our tap truck has been a flower truck at a college campus.
The other concept in my business plan that is unique to the rental industry is the idea of sub-rental. Meaning, instead of expanding my fleet by having to buy more bars or renovate more bars, I can rent out bars that are owned by other people. This happens all the time in the rental industry; maybe an equipment rental company owns 3 generators, but their client needs 5 generators, the company will sub-rent 2 generators from a fellow rental company. I currently sub-rent 2 bars from other people. So I’ve expanded my fleet without adding liability to my company. I am currently in discussions with 3 other bar owners that may want to rent their adorable and unique bars through my company and my brand. They maintain their ownership of their bar and handle storing it and cleaning it and insuring it, and I handle everything else in order to get it rented, delivered and paid.
The thing about Sugar Moon Mobile Bar Company that I just love and value and want to share with others, is that it is FUN to rent a mobile bar! Our bars are unique and fun to see, to use, to deliver and to own! The bars bring smiles everywhere they go, and they just add an element of fun and a vintage vibe to any type of event. Which has been such a breath of fresh air for me and makes this business seem more like a hobby than work! On a personal level, the switch from being a medical professional to a vendor in the event industry has been fun too! The creativity and collaboration of the professionals in this industry is refreshing, inspiring and awesome to behold. You cannot execute an event like a wedding or a conference with one person or one company – it takes a TEAM of vendors who can work together toward a cohesive vision, and often on a tight timeline, to make an event come to life and be successful. The community over collaboration motto is a strong sentiment in this industry and one that I strongly embrace and one that I am honored to have experienced, in a time of need recently.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’m what you’d call a highly motivated individual. The alarm goes off and I’m out of bed and ready to get things checked off my to-do list(s). My self-worth is fueled by accomplishing tasks and achieving goals. It’s just part of my DNA I think. That drive came in handy during my education and 20-year career as a Physical Therapist. I was able to be a machine at work, treating patients in a continuous stream, working through lunch to keep up on charting, and staying late or working from home to continue charting or working on the business. There were no breaks. God help you if you need to use the bathroom or get a drink of water because you’ll just be late for your next patient and you’ll never catch back up. Basically a recipe for burn-out. And that’s exactly what I think happened. As much as I tried to put myself on the priority list, I just could not seem to achieve balance. Then I got colon cancer at the age of 35. It’s funny how a terrible disease like cancer can be a wakeup call. I am not a mature enough human to be able to call cancer a blessing, yet – I still would rather have been able to take a “pass” on that whole experience. But I am a lemonade out of lemons kind of gal, and I am a mature enough human to recognize when God gives you a message: “It is OK to slow down. It is OK to move in a different direction. It is ok to make a change.” So that’s what I did.
I’m a fan of that parable about the Mexican fisherman and the American investment banker (not a biblical parable, but the one that hangs on the wall in Jimmy John’s). I’ve quoted it to my patients for years. If you kill yourself to make as much money as possible, but you don’t take time to live LIFE, and you can’t take the money with you when you die, then what they heck is all that work and stress for? Having colon cancer at the age of 35 gave me the perspective of someone twice my age: life is short, make the most of it. No one ever wished on their deathbed that they’d worked a little longer to earn a few more dollars. Obviously, I have to work to earn enough to live on, to save for retirement and to have some fun, but “how much is enough” is the take-home message of that parable. And cancer reinforced that message for me.
I’m also a fan of the idea of “if you want to walk on water, you gotta get out of the boat,” a wonderful book I read in a bible study group, once upon a time. If you have an idea or a conviction, and you never take a step forward, and you never move your feet in a different direction, how in the world do you expect a change to happen? For me, this was reinforced by another lesson from cancer which is: you do not know what tomorrow holds, so you better make the most out of today. I mean seriously – life is short, carpe diem, “Just Do It,” whatever you want to call it – I needed to make the change and cancer helped me do it.
Party and event rental is not a natural shift from physical therapy, particularly during a pandemic. And renting mobile bars is an unusual niche within party rentals. So, needless to say I got (and still get) some raised eyebrows when I describe my journey over the last few years. But guess what. I’m 47 years old, I’m cancer-free after 12 years, and I can take a break when I want to during the day. I don’t have a rigid schedule most days and my business was profitable by the end of year one. I suspect I’ll probably live a lot longer just from reducing the stress in my day-to-day life. So, the lesson is: let your drive motivate you to take a risk or make a change when the time is right, but don’t let it rule every minute of your life until you’ve got no life left.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sugarmoonmobilebar.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sugarmoonmobilebarco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sugarmoonmobilebarco/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sugar-moon-mobile-bar-co
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sugar-moon-mobile-bar-company-colorado-springs
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/sugarmoonmobilebarco/ https://www.theknot.com/marketplace/sugar-moon-mobile-bar-co-colorado-springs-co-2069622
Image Credits
Clark Miller Photography Alexandria Lopez – Serendipity Studios Stephanie Messick Schloe Photography