This article is part of a series about people who have achieved career success without having a college degree.
Rachel Nieves was 19 and working part-time at Armani when she met someone who told her her personality would be a good fit in the automotive industry.
At first, she had no idea what that meant. Ms. Nieves had started attending Fordham University in 2008 on a full scholarship, but her new job as a call center representative for an automobile company was soon earning her $120,000 a year. She realized that her major – first in mathematics, then in psychology – would probably not allow her to quickly obtain an equivalent salary, so she dropped out.
She stayed in the auto business for about a decade, eventually earning $200,000 in one year. When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, Ms. Nieves began to question her career.
“Money is important to survive, but it’s no longer worth missing out on life,” said Ms. Nieves, now 34. “Create a cafe was a risk I wanted. I’m grateful for my past, but I wanted something more fulfilling.
Starting a food business can be extremely difficult, as the high cost of rent, food and labor often leads to difficulties. low profit margins. But coffee businesses are easier to start because coffee can sell for high profit margins and operate in smaller spaces. Additionally, cafes can brand themselves for their specialty drinks and use their menu as a marketing tool.
Ms. Nieves and her husband, Taylor Nawrocki, a former professional skateboarder, opened a coffee cart, Friendsin the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn on December 26, 2020. They paid rent for 110 square feet inside a pool hall run by Mr. Nawrocki’s former boss. Their coffee cart was also mobile for pop-up events.
The couple purchased a used Slayer single-group espresso machine, which they liked because of its aesthetic, for $7,000 from Craigslist. The seller offered a $2,300 grinder for free. Mr. Nawrocki used Instagram to amass skateboards and repurpose them for the cart counter.
“Taylor sanded them – I ripped off the tape,” Ms Nieves said. “This is how we reduce costs.”
Ms. Nieves is a born-and-raised New Yorker with Puerto Rican heritage, and she offers a coquito latte at the store-turned- popular on social networks.
When Buddies first started, there were days when the couple only made $80.
Occupation: Cafe owner
Salary: From $19 to more than $6,000 a day, but two of the three store owners don’t receive a salary.
Something to know: Two of the four owners mentioned in this article have high school diplomas and one of them has some college education. Another owner has a high school diploma. Another has an 11th grade education.
In September 2021, Ms. Nieves and Mr. Nawrocki did their first pop-up after a production agency contacted them. The client ended up being Nike. They served more than 200 people a day for four days. Halfway through, they renegotiated their flat daily rate from $2,000 to $4,000.
Two months later, Buddies was forced to move. In just three days, the duo transformed part of another pool hall into their new cafe.
“We didn’t have time to think,” Ms. Nieves said. “We started from square one. Taylor taught me how to go for it. Try new things. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, you get a truly amazing ride. This is how skateboarding comes together with Buddies.
Buddies became profitable within the first year because she and Mr. Nawrocki ran the store themselves and did not handle hot food, Ms. Nieves said. They do not formally pay each other a salary.
“Our daily activities and expenses are low,” she said. “We save everything. On a daily basis, the store can bring in $1,500 a day, sometimes $3,000.
Ms. Nieves taught herself how to roast coffee for the store using a company called Shared roast. Buddies now sells coffee in seven locations.
Theresa Cashman, a coffee shop owner in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, where she has lived all her life, began working at the age of 13 carrying tables. She later cooked, hosted, waited tables, worked as a bartender, and held other customer service-related jobs.
“I was home-schooled,” Ms. Cashman, 46, said. “It was easier to work and wait for people to make money than to go to school.”
After Ms. Cashman graduated from high school, she took business classes at a technical college and dabbled in real estate and insurance, but she didn’t feel those jobs were right for her.
Around 2010, she started managing a local cafe owned by friends.
Ms. Cashman divorced in 2016. “I needed to become financially independent,” she said. “I wasn’t making enough there to reach that goal.”
She offered to buy her friends’ business around 2020, but they declined. When Covid-19 hit, she was laid off from the store.
Losing your job was scary. She made $15 an hour. It wasn’t full time, but it was flexible and she had kids.
Ms. Cashman was struggling in a town of just under 19,000 people, but she formulated a business plan to open her own store, approaching three banks for loans.
“I was clearly told I wasn’t going to make what I needed to pay my bills,” she said. However, a bank loaned him $350,000 with his parents as co-signers.
She bid on a vacant property to build her 1,214-square-foot store, built from a recycled shipping container, and opened Ready-made coffee on January 21, 2021.
“I used every inch to keep costs down,” Ms. Cashman said. “Without my parents, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. »
As a sole proprietor, she saved wherever she could. She sealed concrete floors, created menus and tested recipes herself in the basement of a former church before opening. She gets her milk from a convenience store and uses a Minneapolis roastery, Small footprint.
A Starbucks closed in Wisconsin Rapids in 2008 but reopened shortly after Out of the Box opened.
“I was scared to death, but I didn’t see a drop in sales,” Ms. Cashman said. The store made over $6,000 in a single day.
It quadrupled its sales forecast in the first year, she said, and is expected to make $1.2 million in sales in 2024.
Gift baskets to the community
Born in France but now Canadian, Suzanne Smith, 54, is the sole owner of From cookies to basketsa café and chocolatier near Toronto.
“I’m a mother of four and I don’t have a college degree,” Ms. Smith said. “My highest level of education completed was 11th grade. »
After a divorce, she turned to welfare and a food bank for help. “I had no money,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Ms. Smith enrolled in a marketing program and got a part-time job at a tanning salon. She left welfare and started Biscuits to Baskets in July 2002, selling chocolates and gift baskets from her home.
“My mother helped me so much,” she says. Coffee didn’t hit the scene for almost two decades.
Ms. Smith met Colter Smith in 2008, over the now-defunct Facebook. Hot or not application. “We talked a few months before we met,” she said. “It was basically a blind date.” In December 2009, they got married.
Biscuits to Baskets became a front-of-house store in the Smiths’ house. In November 2018, the family moved the business into the garage. The conversion cost nearly $14,000.
“My mother helped us,” Ms. Smith said.
Three years later, the Smiths made coffee a part of their business.
Mrs. Smith’s son Andrew taught her and Mr. Smith about coffee. He worked at Starbucks for two and a half years while in college and helped From cookies to baskets“The coffee business is bearing fruit.
Last April, Keith Leean influential food critic on TikTok with nearly 17 million followers, has been there.
“My husband called me and said, ‘You’ll never believe what just happened,'” Ms. Smith said. “Someone left us a $2,500 tip!” »
After tasting their delectables, Mr Lee introduced himself, complimented the Smiths on their customer service and food and left. He posted a video about her positive experience shortly after.
“It became huge: people were waiting an hour for our cakes and coffees,” Ms Smith said. “We worked 24 hours a day. The money quadrupled or more.
Before Mr Lee’s visit, Biscuits to Baskets was bringing in between $350 and $420 a day. Thereafter, he earned about $1,700 a day, remaining busy until July.
Things got so hectic that local authorities stepped in to calm the street, ordering the garage back into the Smiths’ house. In early June, they purchased a vintage trailer to distribute the load. Converting part of the house into a business cost about $8,400. The trailer added about $17,500.
To help cover costs, Ms. Smith’s son organized a drive for T-shirts emblazoned with Mr. Lee’s compliments, raising $700. Mr. Lee set up a Cash App account for donations and matching profits, totaling $3,000. Customers tipped generously. About $7,000 was raised. The family took out loans for the rest, which they continue to repay.
“I spent most of my life raising my children,” Ms. Smith said. “I didn’t have much education, so I had to do jobs that a lot of us had to do, since I was young.”
Ms Smith said she would take her family for money any day. “Family is my biggest support. »