Coffee Van Hire in West Midlands

Volkscafe Coffee Van provides eye-catching espresso coffee vans, all with friendly trained baristas. They specialise in Film & TV location coffee and craft service and have lots of insightful advice to share if you need to book a similar provider for such an event.

What do you need to know from an organiser in order to provide a comprehensive quote?

For corporate enquiries, we need to know the type of event - eg. trade show, conference, staff treat, sales promotion, plus the number of people we're likely to serve. From there we'll chat to you about your specific requirements - eg, branded van and cups, would the van be in an exhibition hall or outside a showroom, or required to visit clients at their premises. We'll work with you to decide the best way to include one of our vans in your promotion.
For film and TV productions, which are often booked at short notice, we need to know the number in cast and crew, location, whether we're required for a set period or from Call until Wrap, whether we'd be required to provide a craft table, and/or pre-ordered sandwiches, and whether any cast has any particular requirements.

What advice would you give to a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?

Ask how many years experience the coffee van operator has in the particular work you require. If they are part-time 'mom and pop' operators who are semi-retired and just attend a few village fetes, are they going to be able to cope with a busy professional corporate booking?
In addition, for film and TV work, ask how long they take to set up, and how quickly can they move locations. We often get called in at very short notice by film productions who want to replace their original coffee van operator as they can't cope with the intensive demands of a film crew.
Film shoots are a very different world to work in, and the operator must have plenty of experience or they will very quickly realise they are out of their depth. We have over a decade of experience in film and TV Craft Service, so we really know what we're doing and are on speed dial on many production coordinators' phones.
Actually, ask the coffee van operator if they know what Craft service is. If they don't, you know not to book them for your shoot!

Please tell us a little bit about how and why you started the business.

We bought Volkscafe over ten years ago as we wanted an adventure. We're certainly having that! We've been to places we wouldn't normally go to and met some great people along the way.

We started, as many do, attending small public events. However, we soon realised that we could provide a professional service to the corporate world. We acquired a second van which we have left unbranded, so a client can add their own graphics to make the van part of their campaign.
We then were asked to attend a movie shoot at Pinewood Studios for a day. This turned out to be a major production for Disney. We were very inexperienced but were lucky in that the location caterers gave us lots of advice and lent us the extra equipment you need for film work, (which we now have as our standard film location equipment). The one day turned into several weeks of 15 hour days and night shoots.
It was the hardest I've ever worked, but I loved it. I realised that film location work has specific and very different requirements from other coffee van work and would do well to specialise, which is what Volkscafe now do.
We still attend a few public events throughout the year, as well as a Sunday market outside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon every weekend, but we do mainly concentrate on corporate and movie work.
And I still love doing it!

Please tell us about a booking you've had through Add to Event, how did it go? Would you recommend us to others?

I received an enquiry for a corporate job. The client wanted a coffee van to attend a branch opening at a builders merchants.
They wanted branded van, cups, banners, signs, even the barista! No problem I said, as we work with a very creative graphics company.
We got the booking and | duly attended the branch opening which went pretty well.
To cut a long story short, that booking developed into a three-year rolling booking where I attended all their new branch openings across the country. The coffee van is now included in the planning for new branch openings.
I now attend on the opening day and stay outside the branch. The next day, the local sales executive will come out with me in the van and we'll visit potential clients on building sites and at head offices, offering them complimentary coffees and a chat about the client's business. Often we'll come away with a completed account application form.
We also attend the client's annual in-house conference and exhibition where we install a coffee van and our coffee bar, using three baristas and serving around 5000 coffees over three days.
So, it's been quite a booking!