Get your caffeine fix and more at Cactus Coffee

It usually works like this: Someone opens up a food trailer, builds up the business and moves into a brickand-mortar restaurant.

Brooke Burnett took the opposite route and it’s working out well for her.

About three years ago, Brooke operated Cactus Coffee Shop at the Junction but it was tough keeping up with the expenses, so in February she moved the coffee shop to a trailer at Odie’s Place at 411 FM2325 in Wimberley.

Basically, she swapped 2,500 square feet for 128 square feet.

“I’m sentimental about the old place…my son took his first steps there.”

“I started in that space,” explains Brooke, “and it was a lot of space. It was my very first business and it was getting hard to keep up with the overhead and it was just me. I started looking at what options I had for getting into town and I was out of money as well.

Got loan for downpayment

Needing funds to make the move, Brooke turned to Kiva, a non-profit group that lends money over the Internet to low-income, high-risk entrepreneurs all over the world. That $6,000 loan — which took four days to come through — allowed her to make a down payment on her trailer. The silver trailer that once sold vegan ice cream at the Junction was in good shape and didn’t need a lot of work. She “refreshed” it a little and put on her logo.

Call it an instant coffee shop.

Brooke now has about 30 customers a day. She would like to get that number up to 50. “I have a regular customer base,” she says, “people who have been

with me for all three years. A lot of them followed me here. I am getting by.”

The location on 2325 is good, especially when school is in session and parents are dropping off or picking up their children. “Summer has been a little unpredictable,” she says.

Brooke is a single mom with two daughters and a son, ages seven, five and three.

The kids spend a lot of time at the trailer. There’s a play area outside and the other food trailer operators help keep watch. “One thing I am definitely looking forward to is this fall when all three of my kids will be in school and I can come into work by myself. I have never done that before.”

“It’s a little tight in the trailer sometimes, but

we make it work,” Brooke says. “I have been a single mom since the day I first opened. I have had

my kids with me since day one.”

Cactus Coffee Shop is open Monday through

Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. On weekends,

Brooke concentrates on catering and often takes

her mobile Espresso cart to events.

She has an app where people can order ahead

and have their coffee waiting. With a friendly

honk she’ll deliver your order to your car.

Different menu items

The Cactus Coffee Shop menu has some interesting twists. A couple weeks ago she introduced waffles that originated in Hong Kong. Called “Puffles,” the airy waffles can be filled with savory or sweet ingredients. The Classic Lox puffle, for example, has lox, cream cheese, cucumbers, capers, tomato and onion and is topped with dill. The sweet Nutella Royale has strawberries, bananas, Nutella spread, and is finished with whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle. The Puffles have proven popular. Brooke makes the batter fresh daily.

Of course there’s the usual coffee offerings including latte, espresso and cold brew but you can also get unique boba teas and special tea creations such as the Blue Hole, layered with fresh lemonade and butterfly pea tea which actually changes color when it’s mixed.

Her coffee comes from D’s Roastery here in town.

Brooke likes the flexibility a food trailer provides. At a regular restaurant, she says, customers expect the same things to be on the menu every time. Not so at a food truck where she can change the menu when she wants, which is about once a month.

Says Brooke: “Wimberley is a nice community to do business in. Everyone wants to support local. They know when they buy from me they are supporting me and the kids. This is not a corporate chain.”