Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Nathan Claycomb, Joe On The Go

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Nathan Claycomb, Joe On The Go · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everyone, thank you for checking out Coffee People
• 0:03
  today. We hope to see you at our Coffee
• 0:05
  Smarter Live podcast featuring some great Coffee Smarter
• 0:08
  experts over the years. That's going to be Thursday
• 0:11
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• 0:15
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• 0:17
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• 0:20
  We appreciate you and hope to see you there.
• 0:22
  And if not there, then let's share a cup of coffee at the
• 0:25
  World of Coffee Expo. Welcome to the Coffee People
• 0:56
  podcast and this discussion for AARP, which is down the hall, I
• 1:01
  don't know if you saw. That I.
• 1:02
  Did see that I had to ask him to stop sending me letters.
• 1:05
  It makes me feel bad it's not there yet.
• 1:08
  We're here at Coffeefest New York 2026 and we're talking
• 1:12
  with. Nathan Claycomb.
• 1:14
  Yeah, Nathan Claycomb. A lot of people call me Joe.
• 1:17
  Joe. Yeah, We had a coffee truck
• 1:19
  called Joe on the Go Coffee Co OK in Lancaster, PA, and a
• 1:23
  second location of brick and Mortar as a cafe just three
• 1:27
  miles away from our coffee trailer.
• 1:28
  Perfect. And how can people find you just
• 1:31
  so we get that out right away? Sure, they can find us on social
• 1:33
  media at Joe on the Go Coffee Co, the entire company name, or
• 1:38
  on our website, Joe on the Go Coffee co.com.
• 1:41
  OK. We'll be sure to link that.
• 1:43
  We were chatting a little bit earlier and I'm trying to
• 1:46
  remember coffee truck first or brick and mortar?
• 1:48
  1st So we started with a coffee truck back in 2022, OK.
• 1:52
  And we operated that for 2 1/2 years and then went to a coffee
• 1:57
  show much like Coffee Fest and got bit by the cafe bug and
• 2:01
  thought it'd be a great idea to have a cafe someday.
• 2:03
  And it came to fruition about a year later.
• 2:05
  That's amazing. That's really quick.
• 2:07
  Actually. I feel like only three or four
• 2:09
  years have two locations. It was pretty quick for us.
• 2:13
  We were fortunate enough to get a really good brand name with
• 2:16
  the coffee trailer. So we in our second year, we ran
• 2:20
  about 160 events with the trailer in Lancaster County and
• 2:24
  around that area. And then we thought a Cafe could
• 2:27
  be a good fit for us. And there was another company
• 2:30
  that retired and so we took over their space and took the brand
• 2:35
  name and moved it with it, which is interesting because we're not
• 2:38
  on the go, but Joe on the stay doesn't have the same thing to
• 2:42
  it. Yeah.
• 2:42
  So we kept the brand name and kind of moved our our following
• 2:45
  over there. Your people are on the go, your
• 2:47
  customers are absolutely still works.
• 2:50
  Transitioning from a truck to a brick and mortar challenges.
• 2:54
  What lessons did you learn? Permitting.
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  I mean, it had to be a nightmare, but a totally
• 2:58
  different world. I think going from a coffee
• 3:01
  trailer to a brick and mortar cafe brought some new joys
• 3:06
  because you got to play with new drink creations that maybe
• 3:10
  didn't go so well on a trailer. We don't use a lot of glass on
• 3:13
  the trailer, for instance, so we could bring in some new products
• 3:16
  that were bottled in glass, for instance.
• 3:18
  We also had the ability to introduce new.
• 3:21
  Foods. And not just have wraps and
• 3:24
  breakfast sandwiches, but now offer flatbreads and things like
• 3:27
  that and soups and salads. But the, the challenges that we
• 3:30
  didn't expect were when you grow to that scale, you're serving a
• 3:34
  lot more guests in a day in the same amount of hours.
• 3:37
  So you need more team members. You definitely have a little bit
• 3:40
  of a higher rent to pay and the overhead is higher, but the
• 3:45
  reach can be even greater because of the amount of people.
• 3:48
  We're just curious about the food you're offering, though.
• 3:50
  Sure. But it and I think the blessing,
• 3:53
  though, was that the Cafe is stationary and every time you
• 3:59
  move that coffee truck, it's like putting your equipment
• 4:02
  through an earthquake, especially in Pennsylvania where
• 4:05
  the roads are always under construction, like you're always
• 4:07
  jostling your espresso maker and jostling your refrigerator.
• 4:10
  One of my old Pennsylvania employees was a student who was
• 4:15
  trained to be a civil engineer, and he had an internship going
• 4:19
  around examining bridges. So every week you come in with a
• 4:23
  list of bridges. I wasn't allowed to go.
• 4:25
  Over in. Pennsylvania, that's.
• 4:27
  A different job altogether. Yeah, whole different stress
• 4:29
  levels with Joe on the go. Wasn't the first thing you've
• 4:35
  probably done in your lifetime. Why get into coffee at all?
• 4:38
  Why try to start your own business?
• 4:40
  What was your motivation there? Well, we've, we've liked coffee
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  for a long time and we love people.
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  And so this kind of married the two together.
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  But the actual inspiration came from my wife Denise.
• 4:54
  She's here with with us at Coffee Fest as well.
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  And she worked at a very large live theater at the time and was
• 5:01
  working backstage. It's a very cold December day.
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  And there was a a food truck that had come out to the theater
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  not too long before that. And she and her team members
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  said, wouldn't it be great if there was like a coffee truck
• 5:13
  that brought us good coffee to work so that we didn't have to
• 5:16
  go out in 18° weather and buy a latte somewhere else and bring
• 5:20
  it back to work? Which is a whole another aspect
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  of the mobile truck is the rabbit.
• 5:26
  Is the weather? Yes, good, very good point.
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  So she and her friends were talking and she came home and
• 5:31
  said at dinner. So we had this idea.
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  We think we there should be a coffee truck and we're going to
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  call it Joe on the go. And I said, oh, that's cute,
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  it'll never work. And so I was super supportive
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  right out of the gate. And you have proven the point of
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  every wife. I've she was right, my wife.
• 5:51
  She was right. She's always right, it just
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  takes me longer to get there. I said people will have free
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  coffee at your work, why would they pay for a coffee truck to
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  come out to them? And she said, but good coffee,
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  people go out away from their company for good coffee.
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  And so she was right because I woke up the next morning and
• 6:08
  said so about this Joe on the go thing.
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  And she said, why are we still talking about this?
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  And I said, I think your market is soccer tournaments and yard
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  sales and weddings and concerts and festivals, maybe businesses.
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  But I honestly still at that point didn't think that
• 6:25
  businesses would be the place to be.
• 6:27
  And already this year in 2026, we've been at 5 corporate
• 6:31
  events. Yeah, and no public events
• 6:33
  because of the dead of winter in Pennsylvania.
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  So she was definitely right. And honestly, it really did give
• 6:39
  us the opportunity to serve our community differently.
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  So we give back to nonprofits all year long.
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  So we take the coffee truck to an event that's supporting A
• 6:47
  nonprofit. We then turn the funds back to
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  the nonprofit. So our our little mantra became
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  serving your community by serving you.
• 6:56
  So you got a truck, you move into a brick and mortar.
• 7:00
  What is What's next for Joe on the go, either in 2026 or
• 7:05
  beyond? It's a great question.
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  We have a lot of thoughts. I'm a bit of a dreamer, so if
• 7:11
  she keeps coming up with ideas, I'll keep seeing if they can
• 7:14
  flesh them out a little bit. We, we introduced bottled lattes
• 7:17
  and bottled beverages to keep people on the go even more or
• 7:20
  give them the opportunity to grab one of our beverages and
• 7:22
  drink it at work later. We also have our Lee barista
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  here with us at Coffee Fest and I keep nudging him to do a
• 7:30
  coffee cart and maybe launch a coffee cart business.
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  Maybe a second truck. Probably not a second location,
• 7:37
  not a full Cafe, but we do have a couple places asking us if
• 7:41
  we'd be interested in like a kiosk version where we would
• 7:44
  have more of a grab and go food style, but then feature our our
• 7:48
  latte, basically our full complement of beverages.
• 7:51
  So that that intrigues me a little bit where we could
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  basically have a hybrid between the cafe and the coffee trailer
• 7:56
  and find maybe that middle ground to help folks have a good
• 8:00
  quality meal on the go, but with really high quality beverages at
• 8:05
  the same time. All very cool.
• 8:06
  Well, congratulations on everything.
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  The last thing that I always ask is when you're away from your
• 8:12
  own shop, you stop in somewhere else on the road.
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  What do you order? I this sounds super judgmental,
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  but I always go into a coffee shop and order their drip coffee
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  just to get a baseline for the roast that they're selling, but
• 8:28
  also the a vanilla latte, a hot vanilla latte, preferably a 12
• 8:34
  ounce double. I feel like if a Cafe cannot
• 8:38
  serve a really good vanilla latte, I probably don't want to
• 8:41
  try any of their bougie exotic flavors.
• 8:44
  So that's that's my litmus test for cafes.
• 8:47
  One more time, how can we find you out in the?
• 8:49
  World you can find us online at Joe on the go coffee co.com also
• 8:53
  on Instagram and Facebook as well Joe on the go coffee Co.
• 8:59
  Nathan, thank you for. Joining us.
• 9:00
  Thank you, Ryan. Really appreciate it so much.
• 9:01
  Yeah. You bet.
• 9:02
  Hopefully that was famous. That's great.
• 9:05
  Lovely, right? Can you take our picture?
• 9:07
  Yeah, we actually here. Oh, we do.
• 9:11
  One for you, one for me situation.
• 9:14
  Someone could. Snap a photo, That'd be great.
• 9:17
  You can do a digital one too, just this way.
• 9:19
  It's for me, and not just for the Internet.
• 9:23
  Yeah, she's she's not years young still.
• 9:27
  You can come even a little closer, like it's always.
• 9:30
  He's got examples. Yeah, it's very tight.
• 9:34
  Trying to get his brand in though.
• 9:35
  He's got a great. Good look back there.
• 9:38
  You're so close. Give it a second.
• 9:50
  You can take one more than you can take one with you.