Owners Nicole Grinstead & Andrew Sepic met while going to college in Canada and fell in love. After college, driven by creative pursuits (a career in music for Andrew and a Master’s Degree in Art for Nicole) they moved to the great city of Montreal and during that time became fond of the incredible croissants, great espresso and the variety of cafés found in the city.
After 6 years in Montreal it was time for a change and they decided to move to Nicole’s native country, the USA. They began a 5 month road trip around the U.S. to find the place they wanted to settle in. Along the way, in each town they visited, they would go to the local coffee shop. This would allow them to feel the vibe of the place, pick up on the culture of that part of the country and sample their coffee. During their trip they were also impressed at the prevalence of coffee cabins littered throughout remote, sparsely populated areas of Oregon and Washington state. These cabins would provide a a stellar espresso in the middle of nowhere.
Nicole and Andrew finally decided to settle in Vermont and after living in Johnson, Westford and now Bolton, they saw a need for a well made specialty coffee in the area’s outside of Burlington and it’s already well developed coffee culture. Both being entrepreneurs and having the skills necessary, they got to work to hatch a plan and bring a mobile coffee shop solution to Vermont.
In September 2015 they purchased a 1971, half gutted, Go Tag-a-long travel trailer in Ithaca, NY and they got to work to turn it into their dream. Very shortly after, it became apparent that the limitations of the trailer design were too great, and that for a longer term solution they would be better off to tear it all down and start from scratch. And they did just that. All the while taking pictures every 30 seconds so you have this nice little video of the birth of a coffee shop.
(30 secs for 8 months of off & on labor works out to about 15mins of video!)
Deciding that they would do best to serve the commuters coming into and out of Burlington, after doing their research on traffic statistics from VT Trans, Nicole and Andrew decided Essex Junction (the 5 corners) would be a great spot to try their business model.
They ran a crowdfunding campaign to help raise their startup funds for the project and they were drilled by experienced entrepreneurs on the podcast Surviving the Startup. After many months of slow work that progressed as they could manage with their other jobs, the project was complete and Nomad Coffee was launched.
We are so happy to be here in Essex Junction. The result of all our work has finally come to fruit and people seem sincerely happy to have us open up and that makes all our work well worth it.
~ Andrew & Nicole
Did you know we do events? Get in touch.