FRESCOBOL CARIOCA sits down for a coffee with the Founder of Café Nice – a mobile specialty café experience – for a conversation on daily rituals and creating spaces for connection.

What do your mornings usually begin with? What does a well-spent morning look like for you?
Steve: My mornings start the night before; I go to sleep genuinely looking forward to waking up and making coffee. It's become my ritual, the thing that sets me up for the day. I make myself and my wife a coffee, my daughter is usually pottering around, playing with her toys, and then we have ten minutes together just enjoying it. It's a really lovely moment of pause.

What inspired you to make café culture mobile?
Steve: I've been involved in coffee for over ten years now. My background is content creation, and a lot of what I did was highlighting coffee shops and interviewing people within the scene. At the same time, I restored a classic Range Rover about five years ago. It had always been a dream car of mine. Growing up, I'd see them on the road and think they were incredible. When I became an adult, owning and restoring a classic car was always something I wanted to do.

The original idea behind Café Nice was to connect my online world with something physical. I asked myself: What would it look like if the people who follow me online could come together in real life? I wanted there to be substance to it, something people could gather around and share.

The coffee bar people see today is probably version four or five. I've continually evolved it based on foot traffic, workflow, and experience. The very first version was incredibly simple. I did a small event for only a few people. I used a couple of railway sleepers on the Range Rover's split tailgate to create a makeshift counter, put my coffee machine and grinder on top, powered everything with leisure batteries, and just thought: Let's see if this works.

The reception was great. It felt like a proof of concept. For me, Café Nice sits at the intersection of all the things I love: cars, coffee, design, community, storytelling. 

What's your favourite part of the job?
Steve: The people, 100%. Everything I've done over the years has ultimately been about people. Café Nice only exists because people show up to engage with what we're doing. The conversations are my favourite part. Hearing how people discovered us, talking about coffee, classic cars, creativity; those interactions are what make it worthwhile.

What has the journey been with building the community?
Steve: There are definitely people who have followed my journey for years—from before Café Nice and even before the Range Rover restoration. They've been part of the story from the beginning. But what's exciting now is that the café has become bigger than that.
The other day I was in a coffee shop wearing a Café Nice hat and someone said, "Oh, Café Nice, I love what they're doing." They had no idea that I had anything to do with it, they were just having a chat. That was amazing. 

I have friends in the coffee industry who tell me people show up to tasting events wearing Café Nice hats. A friend was running a photography workshop in Patagonia and one of the attendees was wearing one. Moments like that are incredibly special because they show the community is starting to exist independently. People engage with Café Nice because they connect with it, not because they know me personally. That's really motivating.

What's your go-to coffee order?
Steve: It depends where I am. I'm all about variety, so I usually seek out exceptional coffee shops and ask what they recommend. I might have a flat white, cortado, or piccolo, but ideally I want to taste what the café is excited about.

Coffee is a bit like wine or whisky; there are so many variables: origin, processing method, roast profile, flavour notes. When I visit a coffee shop, I see their coffee selection as a reflection of their personality. I'm interested in what they're saying about themselves through the coffees they choose to serve.

If the coffee reflects the personality, what are you trying to say?
Steve: I want Café Nice to be a conversation. I want people to leave saying, "Have you tried it?"  Not because of numbers or hype, but because they had a meaningful experience.Maybe they enjoyed the coffee. Maybe they had a great conversation. Maybe they met someone new. That's the dream. If people come away having formed friendships or connections, that's real community.

Do you have a controversial coffee opinion?
Steve: I think a lot of the most popular, seasonal drinks aren't actually that good.
Every season there's a new trend and suddenly everyone is serving the same thing because it's getting visibility. So my controversial opinion would be: the most popular thing isn't always the best thing.

Finally, what's next for Café Nice?
Steve: The ultimate dream is a permanent space. The Range Rover has been an incredible way of creating temporary meeting places, but I'd love to build a physical home for Café Nice. Somewhere people can gather regularly for conversations, creativity, and community. That said, I don't think we'll ever stop doing pop-ups. The car is part of the DNA of the brand. It allows us to travel, meet people where they are, and bring Café Nice to different communities. A permanent space would give people a home to visit, but the Range Rover allows us to keep moving; I think both of those things will always be important to Café Nice.

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