How This Coffee Caterer Went from a Garage Startup to 1300+ Events a Year

The first event was held together with borrowed equipment and blind confidence.

Someone asked Michael Craig if he could serve 500 drinks at a hotel. He said yes. He didn’t have an espresso machine. He didn’t have a cart. He barely had a scale.

What he did have: a friend named Steven with gear, and the willingness to figure it out.

That event changed everything.

From Barista to Business Owner

Michael’s story starts in Melbourne, where he discovered that coffee could actually taste good. After 30 years of hating coffee, one cup in Australia flipped a switch.

Fast forward to Austin, Texas. Michael couldn’t legally work at first (classic immigrant story, as he puts it). But he fell in love with the specialty coffee scene—the quirky baristas, the geeky obsession with beans, the stories behind each origin.

He wanted his own business. The dream was a beautiful roastery with a coffee shop. The reality? That costs a couple million dollars he didn’t have.

So he started small. Coffee subscriptions. Online sales. Beautiful websites that generated zero revenue.

Then came that first event request.

The Power of Saying Yes

When you don’t have the equipment, the experience, or the certainty—but you say yes anyway—something shifts.

“Somehow we pulled off an event and served coffee. At that point I was like, wow, people want to pay me money to do this. This is great. Maybe I should do this.”

Those early carts were rough. Plywood with hinges. Things plugged in and hoped to work. No perfect Instagram shots yet.

But it didn’t matter. The business was real.

Why Catering Beats Coffee Shops

Here’s what Michael discovered: catering has a completely different energy than running a coffee shop.

In a coffee shop, customers begrudgingly wait in line and pay $7.50 because they wanted oat milk. The transaction feels transactional.

In catering? You’re giving people free coffee. The client paid for it, not them. You’re in someone else’s space, bringing something unexpected and delightful.

“100 people I served that day—only two of them even knew what a cortado was. The other 98 had never had anything better than a Starbucks. I was literally introducing people to their first ever specialty coffee.”

That’s the magic. You’re not competing for customers who already have opinions about their latte art. You’re creating new specialty coffee converts, one event at a time.

The Full-Time Inflection Point

For years, Michael balanced barista shifts with building Creature Coffee. A few events here and there. Earning money, buying equipment, upgrading the carts.

Then came the conversation with his wife (who works in tech and, as Michael puts it, “earns unrealistic money compared to baristas”).

At what point do you quit the stable job? One event a week? Two? Three?

Michael made the leap in 2019. The moment he went full-time, everything changed.

“As soon as I went full-time, it was just gang busters. I just couldn’t keep up.”

COVID was the only thing that slowed the momentum. But by then, Creature was already two carts deep with a real operation running out of a warehouse.

Building a Brand People Actually Want to Follow

Specialty coffee can get serious. Slurping and cupping and “notes of jasmine.” A bit hipstery.

Creature Coffee went the opposite direction: pink and yellow colors, playful creatures on every coffee bag, energy that makes people smile.

The secret weapon? An artist named Alexandra who designs unique creatures for each single origin coffee. The visual identity became so distinctive that people like Zach’s wife would follow them on Instagram just to see what they’d post next.

“We wanted something fun. Specialty coffee can get serious—let’s get some colors in, let’s play around with it.”

In a crowded market, being memorable beats being perfect.

From Garage to 1,300+ Events

The growth path was simple (not easy, but simple):

1. Earn money from events
2. Buy better equipment
3. Repeat

No outside funding. No investors. Just reinvesting revenue into the business.

The progression: garage → coffee bar in a hostel → warehouse space → legitimate operation with their own roasting facility.

Today, Creature Coffee operates in both Austin and Seattle, doing over 1,300 events per year. Michael is the person other coffee caterers call for advice—including Justin from Goodhart Coffee.

The Culture That Fuels Growth

Michael worked for a lot of companies he hated. Bad bosses. No clear goals. Feeling invisible.

He built Creature differently. The energy you see in the brand comes from the team—people who actually enjoy showing up to work.

“We got to have a good time. I’ve worked for companies where I hated my job, didn’t feel like there was a goal, didn’t know why I was there. I want everyone who works here to have a good time.”

That culture becomes self-reinforcing. Happy baristas create happy customers. Happy customers book more events. More events mean more opportunities for the team.

The Lesson

You don’t need perfect carts, a detailed business plan, or millions in funding.

You need to say yes to the first opportunity, figure it out, and keep showing up.

Michael started with borrowed equipment and plywood carts. He ended up building one of the most distinctive coffee catering brands in the country.

The only difference between him and the people still dreaming about it? He started.