A studio for independent food and drink
The first Ground Up is this August: an intro to starting your Orange County coffee cart, the simplest way into the pop-up world.
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Events · Concepts · Case studies
Coffee cart startup · August
Why we do it
A place to be doesn't always mean four walls or a landlord. Sometimes all it takes is a good idea and someone willing to do it.
The Work
Every project is a cover. Open one to read it told as a case study.
A Cool Cellar program · Orange County
We're putting on the first Ground Up this August: an intro to starting your Orange County coffee cart, the simplest way into the pop-up world. Get on the early list to hear how to start, and to be first in line for a seat.
You'll be first to hear when and where, and first in line for a seat.
Consumption data: NCA / SCA National Coffee Data Trends, 2025.
Ground Up is the intro. It's the room where "I've always wanted to" turns into "here's my next step."
The whole path in plain English: permits, costs, the commissary, the good spots. No jargon, no government PDF.
Bring the one question that's kept you from starting. You'll leave with an answer.
Meet roasters, cart builders, and other people chasing the same thing across Orange County.
About
Cool Cellar is a studio for independent food and drink. We run tastings and dinners that gather people around small-batch makers, programs for people opening something of their own, a publication on the operators doing it, and the tools they use to run it.
Two halves of the same machine: rooms that build the appetite, and programs that help the operators exist.
Tastings and dinners that gather people around small-batch makers, and give a neighborhood a reason to sit down together.
Ground Up and the cohorts that follow it: practical rooms for people opening something of their own.
The Dispatch, plus the writing and film work that follows operators through the parts nobody documents.
Products for the operators already running, built for carts and pop-ups rather than restaurants.
