It started with a simple premise: You should be able to sell $1 cups of coffee and still make a living. A year later, Pieter Hilton’s dream of owning a coffee cart and freeing himself from a traditional job has come to fruition.
“We wanted to make a modest living off of it and still charge $1 for coffee,” said Hilton, who moved to Portland two years ago from California.
Hilton operates Boy Gorilla Coffee, which is affiliated with the local record label Boy Gorilla. The cart, located at Southwest Broadway and Mill Street next to Clean Copy, began operation over spring break, but business began picking up once students returned to campus for spring term.
It has quickly become a popular spot for students, and Hilton said the cart is already doing better than breaking even.
“I got laid off in July,” Hilton, 21, said. “That gave me time to build the thing [cart] from scratch. It was kind of a learning experience. I built it from two by fours.”
The cart is rather noticeable, as it is custom designed to fit Hilton’s unique stature—he is 6 feet 10 inches tall and towers above his partner, Ashley Keneller, who must stand on a box to work. Hilton often wears a sandwich-board sign and strolls through the Park Blocks looking for customers.
Hilton brought Keneller, 25, into the fold last October, after she got laid off from a job as a barista.
“For the more specific things, maybe we needed two people thinking about that stuff,” she said.
Hilton said that he enjoys the consensus he reaches with Keneller, even though they are often initially at odds with each other.
The duo decided to serve coffee from Jonathan Legare’s Café and Community Resource Center in Southeast Portland. They are now in the process of expanding their menu, including adding cold coffee and other cold beverages. Next week they will begin selling Boy Gorilla merchandise.
Keneller said the coffee they sell has impressed customers. She related a story about a customer drinking Seattle’s Best that tried their coffee.
“He bought our coffee and left his Seattle’s Best,” she said.