The summer before my freshman year of college, I made minimum wage hand-carving shaved ice in a tiny, grasshopper-infested hut. I’m pleased to see today’s youths finding cushier arrangements—namely, selling high-end lattes out of their college dorm rooms. Particularly Liam Gainer, a Florida Southern College freshman who has started a groovy little business selling maple cinnamon oat milk lattes on campus.
Florida Southern’s student newspaper, The Southern, reports that Gainer learned his craft at two area coffee shops. “I’ve always had this dream of owning a coffee shop, and [recently getting] an espresso machine further inspired me to open my business,” Gainer told The Southern. Now he wakes up early to prepare and deliver lattes before class in an enterprise he’s dubbed Dorm Coffee.
“My experience was fantastic,” Dorm Coffee customer Nour Lotfy told the student paper. “I’ve gotten it twice so far and I love the accessibility of it. He only does one menu item for now but he’s really perfected it so I don’t mind coming back with my business. I think it’s awesome that someone has managed to come up with such a creative way to do something different, have fun, and make money.”
The Southern reports that Gainer’s lattes go for $5 a pop. Students and faculty can order through Gainer’s Dorm Coffee Instagram page. Gainer then hand-delivers the lattes to campus buildings every weekday from 7 to 10 a.m. Definitely beats picking grasshopper legs out of rotten cans of sweetened condensed milk.