Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Quigley.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
We started Quigley Coffee Co. out of a deep love for people and for coffee, in that order. After spending years behind the bar, managing shops, and learning every part of the coffee world, we realized what we loved most wasn’t just serving a great cup, it was building connection through it. We love making new friends and making people feel cared for. Coffee has just become our way of making it happen everyday.
In 2021, we took the leap and started Quigley Coffee Co. right here in our hometown, Sanford, Florida. What began as a dream and a small coffee cart has grown from just that, into a micro cafe inside of a thrift store, into a fleet of coffee carts and now we’ve grown into a larger Cafe/Roastery with mobile coffee carts serving our community every day. We’ve learned a lot along the way. How to roast, how to grow and survive rising costs, but most importantly, how to stay rooted in what matters most: people.
Our motto sums it up best, “Coffee is our thing, People are our heart”. Every decision we make, from how we hire, how we show up at events, to how we take care of the small details of roasting and brewing coffees comes back to that. Today, we’re proud to not only serve our local community but also help others chase their own coffee dreams with education, collaboration, and heart-forward hospitality in our coffee cart franchising opportunities.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s definitely been a wild ride! When we started, we had no idea what we were doing. We just had a lot of passion and a willingness to learn as we went. Even getting off the ground was tough. Figuring out the different types of permits for espresso carts and helping the city understand that we weren’t a food truck was a challenge in itself… and that was just the beginning.
Most of our mentors told us everything would take three times as long and cost three times as much as we expected, and you know what, they were absolutely right. Learning the financial side of business, navigating taxes (which we happily outsourced almost immediately), and trying to build a sustainable client base beyond farmers markets was no small feat. We had to learn how to speak the language of wedding venues, hospitality professionals, and event planners and, honestly, a lot of it started by begging friends and family to let us serve at their events. It was chaotic, but it was also a blast. Smiles aren’t necessarily the best way to measure success, but for us those smiles were exactly what we’d hoped for and they kept pushing us forward.
Eventually, we found a home base. A small thrift store that let us park our espresso cart there most days between events. It gave us consistency and community. But when lines started wrapping around the building every time we came back from events, we knew it was time to grow. We added a second cart so now we had one for catering, one for daily service and kept grinding until we could finally open our brick-and-mortar cafe. That process came with its own hurdles: delays, inflation, and more city permitting adventures. What we thought would take months turned into years, and we finally opened our doors in February 2024.
Now that the cafe is open, the growing pains have slowed, but the daily grind of business ownership is still very real. Every challenge along the way has been worth it, though. Seeing our space filled with people working, celebrating, and connecting that’s what it’s all about. Coffee is our thing, but people are our heart. People are the prize.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve been in coffee for over a decade now, and I’ve worked nearly every job in the industry. I learned that great coffee matters, but people matter more. My experience in many different types of cafes and shops showed me that, while guests care about the product, they care much more about how they feel. Being an extrovert myself, I even recharge as an extrovert, I think I was built to foster this type of community.
When my wife Miranda and I started Quigley Coffee Co. in 2021, we didn’t have all the answers — just a clear vision to create something genuine. We started with a single espresso cart, built our business one event at a time, and eventually opened our café in Sanford, Florida.
Today, I’m most proud of how far we’ve come and that we have some of the greatest people on the planet working for us to make it all work. I have the greatest employees. They’re like family to my wife and I, and we can’t make this work without them caring as much as we do for our community.
What’s next?
We’ve had so many people reach out to us and ask how to start their own venture that we decided to make it an option for people like us to get started with Quigley Coffee Co.
Our story of going from Cart to Cafe only took a few years, and we started with nothing. So we have made franchising our coffee cart model available to beginner entrepreneurs who have the same heart as we do so that we can help more people succeed. Setting an extremely low cost to entry for a low risk, high reward business is our way of proving that we’re in this for the love of seeing others succeed.
Other than that, our goal is to continue growing our cafes and our community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://quigleycoffeeco.com
- Instagram: @quigleycoffee @quigleycoffeecart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quigleycoffeeco/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QuigleyCoffeeCo
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/quigley-coffee-sanford-2
Image Credits
@joshcwolf
