How you feel about the Cybertruck is a pretty good barometer for how you may feel about other things. It is on one hand, an electric vehicle and one of the few electric trucks available on the market, and on the other it is a completely bonkers looking thing of arguable quality from a company with an edgelord CEO. It is unquestionably a statement piece. Now, what that statement is and how well it is received, YMMV.
And it is also the setting for a pop-up cafe. A San Jose, California coffee company has created a mobile coffee shop in the back of a Tesla Cybertruck.
That company is Moonwake Coffee Roasters by husband and wife duo Ming Wood and Mabel Yeung, and per WJTV, they bring their Cybertruck cafe to the Cupertino Farmer’s Market every Sunday. While implementing the latest Tesla was certainly A Choice, it makes more sense in the contexts of the owners’ backgrounds. Before getting into coffee, Wood was an engineer at Tesla while Yeung was in the tech sector at Meta.
There are benefits to the Cybertruck. Per the Moonwake blog post explaining their decision, one big factor was their ability to use 240V power, and thus a commercial espresso machine. The company was at one point running to 110V prosumer espresso machines for their farmer’s market cafe, but had outgrown the setup and needed something a little more heavy duty, which the Cybertruck allowed for.
They state later that the truck’s battery can last for something like 30 hours of service. They also go on to say that a gas generator wasn’t an option because they would lose their stall spot at the market (along with the issues with fumes and noise and the general fossil fuel-ness of it all.)
Another big reason is simply that it’s a head-turner. It’s a conversation starter. You see a cafe in the back of a polarizing and easy-to-spot vehicle, and you’re probably going to go check it out.
But Moonwake is more than just flash and spectacle. They are running serious equipment—like a La Marzocco GS/3 and now a Sanremo Cafe Racer—and using some pretty exceptional coffees: Sudan Rumes, Sidras, Pink Bourbons, etc. And the brand is currently working on a brick-and-mortar cafe and roasting space. A little birdie has informed me that Moonwake’s new shop will even be featured in the Build-Outs of Coffee this year, so keep an eye out for that in the very near future.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
Photos via Moonwake Coffee Roasters
