Tucked away on a short wonky block off Skillman Street in East Dallas, JuJu’s Coffee has the feel of a quintessential neighborhood coffee shop. The bubblegum pink floors complement the white of the espresso machine on the counter and the red roaster in the corner. Baristas chat with customers while whisking matcha and tamping espresso.
“It feels like we are part of the neighborhood,” said Nick Rocha, who started JuJu’s with his wife Julia in May of 2022, serving coffees out of a vintage Airstream before landing in their brick and mortar a year later. The neighborhood seems to agree; the couple won Best Baristas in Dallas Observer’s Best of Dallas 2024 awards. And while neighborhood residents and JuJu’s regulars supply most of the morning rush, JuJu’s is becoming more than just a local spot.
“I’m just in town visiting, and I always look for a cool coffee shop, and JuJu’s fit the bill,” said customer Andrew Carty.
JuJu’s started as a Covid-era dream. Nick and Julia, not yet married and still in college at University of North Texas, bought their 1962 Airstream in 2020.
“I think that everyone was trying to get a hold of everything,” Nick said. “That’s really when we were able to start brainstorming and get the Airstream going.”
The Rochas were among a surge of Americans who started their own businesses during Covid, and the trend continued even as the vaccine came out and restrictions were lifted. Even in October of 2023, Americans were filing 59% more applications for new businesses than they were prior to March of 2020, according to a January press release from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Nick was 19-years-old when he and Julia bought the Airstream. Julia was only 21. For other college students and young adults with big entrepreneurial dreams, Nick recommends focusing on figuring out a budget and sticking to it, even if parents are still contributing.
When Nick and Julia looked for a trailer to buy, they knew they had a limited budget. They scoured Facebook Marketplace and when they saw an Airstream going for a couple thousand dollars, they immediately went to check it out. They managed to get the price down further because the trailer was already stripped.
It took almost two years to renovate the Airstream as Nick and Julia saved up and tackled renovations when they had the money and time.
“We worked jobs, multiple different jobs, different side things, and we lived at home for almost a year because of COVID,” Julia said.
Nick and Julia, with help from their parents, did almost all of the renovations themselves. They watched YouTube videos and persevered even when their DIYs didn’t turn out as planned. For expensive renovations that required a professional, like the window fabrication, they paid a down payment and followed a payment plan.
In May of 2022, Nick and Julia hosted their first JuJu’s event, serving lattes and cortados out of the Airstream window. In the Airstream, affectionately named Otis, JuJu’s popped up at DFW events. They had hopes for a brick and mortar in their five year plan, said Julia, but less than a year later JuJu’s opened in a tiny building on La Vista Drive.
The previous tenant of the space, another coffee shop called Coffee Company, had held the space for over 40 years. When the space became available when the Coffee Company closed its doors in December of 2022, Julia knew there was no way they could afford it. Still, they entered conversations with the Coffee Company owners.
“They were like, actually, ‘We’re gonna give it to you guys cheaper,’ which was in our price range, which was amazing for us,” Julia said. The Coffee Company owners liked the idea of a new neighborhood coffee shop filling the caffeine hole their retirement had left. Nick and Julia got a loan from a bank in order to buy the Coffee Company’s assets in the building and take over the lease.
Neither Nick nor Julia had background in entrepreneurship, but each owner brings their own skill set to the business.
Nick, who studied marketing at the University of North Texas, does almost all of the branding work for the shop—the striking “Your Tiny Neighborhood Coffee Shop” sign that sits on the corner of La Vista and Skillman, the pennant graphic on mugs and stickers, the curly haired silhouette on their business cards, and the tiny circle sticker that goes on the top of each coffee.
JuJu is a nickname for Julia, Nick’s inspiration for the brand. “Julia is very simple. She’s very bold. And so I wanted our brand to be very simple and bold,” he said.
“I think that marketing is just as important as getting your budgets down, just as important as getting your cost of goods sold down, and knowing what your numbers are,” Nick continues. “It’s knowing how much exposure you have and how much you mean to people. Our goal is to really just impact our neighborhood and just to bless people in the neighborhood, and so that’s kind of my job, is to convey that to our customers.”
While Nick saves money by doing most of the marketing in house, Julia is the financial mind behind the business. She studied accounting at UNT and worked at an accounting firm after college and until October 2023, when she quit to work on JuJu’s full-time.
“We would not be here without Julia,” Nick said. “She wasn’t able to be there as much as she wanted, but she bankrolled us, thankfully. And I’m just super thankful to have her by my side.”
For other young entrepreneurs, it’s important to know that starting a business young can mean a lot of financial sacrifice, Julia said.
“We live well below our means. We didn’t do vacations. We didn’t do anything. Nick and I went on our first vacation by ourselves since we had our honeymoon, like, a month ago—we’ve been married for three years,” she said.
Still, she recommends taking the entrepreneurial leap sooner rather than later.
“It gets harder to do it the older that you get,” she said. “You think you’ll have more money, but you’ll have more responsibilities at that point.”
JuJu’s has come a long way from their beginnings of serving coffee at HOA events out of their Airstream Trailer. They get their beans directly from ports in Houston and California and roast their beans in house. Now, they offer bagged beans, locally designed JuJu’s merch, and they are expanding their focus to matcha drinks as well.
A matcha latte starts at $5, while a drip coffee is $3. Their seasonal drinks are more expensive, costing around $7. Julia estimates that coffee and tea drinks make up about 85% of their sales, with the rest of their revenue coming from merch sales and catering events. JuJu’s is profitable on an operating basis, Julia said.
“Sales wise, we’ve done a lot more than what we’ve ever thought. We probably have doubled or tripled what we’ve done last year,” she said. They are still a little in the red overall from the bank loan for the brick and mortar, she explained.
Nick emphasized the importance of building relationships in the industry, pointing out that they wouldn’t be in the La Vista building if they hadn’t gotten to know the old Coffee Company owners. JuJu’s also has a relationship with their matcha supplier, Matchaful, and their new pastry suppliers, Bresnan Bread and Pastry in McKinney.
“They’re a couple like us, and they’re very passionate about what they do, and we just felt like we could relate to them,” Nick said. “We were just super honestly grateful to have someone kind of in the same boat as us and partner alongside them.”
For JuJu’s, community is the main focus. Whether it’s their suppliers, their customers, or their employees, Nick and Julia Rocha look to build connections and community.
“It feels like a breath of fresh air working for them compared to previous jobs,” said barista Zahira Torres, who’s been working for JuJu’s for over a year.
“My favorite part of working here is actually the customers and the regulars, and getting to see them and know about their lives. And honestly, it’s kind of crazy. Like, sometimes you see these people more than your family and friends, and then they become friends, and it’s pretty cool,” Torres said.
Julia echoed Torres, remembering how often she saw her local barista during college. She wants every JuJu’s customer to feel the human connection coffee can spark.
“Why let that moment pass? You could get to know somebody, and they could brighten your day,” she said.
