I spent some beautiful hours this morning with Casey Face, carpenter Dan Rogers, and the nearly finished former Horse Trailer, soon to be Casey’s dream for many years: a food and breakfast cart that features gourmet coffee, exotic tea, and all kinds of delicious donuts and baked goods she plans to put on the menu.
Casey has been working on her dream most of her life; she’s worked in 20 different food industry places in various service and office jobs. She knows everything about the industry, who succeeded and why, and who failed and why. She’s maneuvering through all the things she saw and learned.
Today’s goal was to paint the inside of the truck, and when I offered to help do some of the painting, Casey said sure, she could use the help. I did the two doors with the help of Dan, who is renovating the old horse wagon and making it shine.
We had a great time. I did a short video below of Casey talking about her plans for the cart and then got to work. Casey is a very organized and reasoned dreamer. She is impressive. She does her homework, consults scores of people, embraces networking with other coffee makers, bakers, and young farmers, and plans to set up her Canteen/coffee company right in the middle of our small town in early February.
Casey has worked on this project for years as a trained designer and restaurant worker; she has designed every inch of the cart herself and talked to just about everyone in range who might know something about food, sales, networking, and the best possible food and coffee and tea and cider.
She knows the town inside and out. Her video is just above, and I’ve added some of the photos that capture what was a terrific experience for me and an exciting time for Casey.
There is something about Casey that is special. We all dream, and most fail, fade away, or are defeated. Casey initially seems quiet and soft-spoken, but that is not the reality. She is tough, wise, and determined. She is locked into her dream, symbolizing the freedom to shape our lives without shorting our families or selves.
She’s, for real, determined to be a present mother of her two small daughters (one four months old) and has every bit of this planned and considered. She has the complete support of her husband and family.
Casey has learned the mistakes of every food place that failed and is meant to avoid them. She understands that this is tough to pull off in a small town fixed in its ways, but things are changing here. The Pandemic brought many people from the shutdown cities, and they may well form the core of her new customers.
There is a great hunger in our town for good, healthy, inexpensive food, and she is on it. Her eyes reflect her strength and determination. She’s not expecting to fail. And she is appropriately nervous. She has a lot of time and money in this project and isn’t rich.
I’m a Casey Page believer. She is intelligent, curious, and intensely creative.
Her dream is right at hand, and she will take it as far as possible. I’m already hooked on her tea and can’t have breakfast at her cart. I get hungry when she even talks about her plans.
She is always careful to include her two children in the project; she doesn’t wish to be an absent mother. She’s taken on a lot. She is up to it.
I had the best time painting two of her doors, even though I couldn’t quite reach the top (Dan could). Casey has a lot to do before opening up – locking down a site, getting health department approval, registering her old and abandoned horse cart, and making it beautiful, which has already happened, thanks to Dan Rogers.
Dan has been working on the horse trailer for months, and Casey has been right with him. The two work quickly and efficiently together; Dan has done a fantastic job. He is soon coming to our farm to build a space for our new compost upstairs toilet.
Casey works quietly and hard; she paints stains on the interior and has all kinds of design ideas for the inside and the outside.
This is what the horse trailer looks like now; it is no longer recognizable when she found it in Northern Vermont and brought it to our town.
The stain is already transforming the inside. She will probably get a portable heater. The plumbing is done.
Casey studied design in college, and I sense she is a designer at heart. She has worked out the design of every inch of the trailer and keeps her drawings on her Iphone. She lights up whenever she talks about design, an integral part of renovating the trailer, and her plans for selling food and drink.
One of two doors I got to paint. I loved it; thanks, Casey, for letting me help. I don’t have your energy, but I share your enthusiasm. I love dreamers and the things they do. I am one, and I married another. I guess it’s in my blood. I did okay.
Inside the wagon, before the painting. The service window will be on the left.
