Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Waters.
Hi Aaron, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
just cold brew really started as a dream for my wife, Kailyn, and me.
We met in high school, and for a long time we had talked about someday owning a cafe together. It was always one of those ideas that stayed in the background while life kept moving.
I joined the Air Force, and after my time in the military, we eventually moved to Florida where I worked inspecting aircraft engines. Aviation shaped a lot of how I approach things. In that world, details matter. Quality, consistency, and doing things the right way every time are expected. I knew that if we ever did build something of our own, I wanted to bring that same level of care and attention to detail into it.
For a while, though, owning a cafe was still just a dream.
Then Kailyn became pregnant, and our priorities changed pretty quickly. We were in Florida, away from most of our family, and it really made us think about what we wanted the next chapter of our life to look like. We wanted to get back home, be closer to family while raising our daughter, and find a way to build something for ourselves.
That is when the old cafe idea started feeling a lot more real.
Coffee made sense for both of us. Kailyn had previously worked at Starbucks, so she already had experience with coffee service, drink building, customers, and the pace of that environment. I had the aviation side of my background, where I was used to obsessing over quality, process, and consistency. We felt like those two things actually worked pretty well together.
We started developing a coffee concept, but the first version just never really felt right.
The more we worked on it, the more we realized we did not want to build a traditional coffee business just because that was what coffee businesses were supposed to look like. We loved coffee, but we wanted it to feel more approachable. None of the pressure or snobbery that can occasionally come with coffee culture. We did not want someone to feel like they needed to know roast profiles, extraction methods, or the right terminology just to order something they liked.
One day, while we were brainstorming how to fix the concept, I said, “What if we serve cold brew, just cold brew?”
Kailyn said, “That could work. What do we call it?”
And it came to us pretty simply.
just cold brew.
I remember saying, “It’ll be the answer to the question. What do y’all serve? just cold brew.”
That was the moment the whole thing started to click.
Once we stopped trying to make it look like a traditional coffee company, everything became easier. The name was simple, the concept was simple, and it actually felt like us.
At some point we started joking, “It’s not that serious. It’s just cold brew.”
That joke ended up becoming a pretty good description of the whole brand.
We take the product seriously. We care a lot about the coffee, the ingredients, the recipes, consistency, presentation, and making sure someone gets the same quality drink every time they come to us. That is where a lot of my aviation background still shows up. I probably spend more time thinking about small details than most people would ever realize.
But we do not take ourselves too seriously.
We are not trying to be fancy coffee. We are not trying to pretend we are something we are not. Cold brew is probably considered the “lazy coffee” of the coffee world, and we have kind of embraced that.
You can still make a really high quality drink without making coffee feel complicated or intimidating.
That balance is really what just cold brew has become. High quality coffee and drinks, a lot of attention behind the scenes, but a brand that is fun, simple, and approachable on the outside.
Moving back to Virginia gave us the chance to finally turn something we had talked about since we were young into something real. What started as two high school kids saying maybe one day we would own a cafe has turned into us building just cold brew together while starting our family.
We are still early in the story and still figuring things out as we go. There have been trailers, permits, recipes, equipment, events, branding decisions, mistakes, changes, and plenty of learning.
But the goal has stayed pretty simple.
We want to build something that belongs to our family, make really good coffee, have fun doing it, and hopefully create something people around here are excited to see pull up.
It’s not that serious.
It’s just cold brew.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not.
One of the biggest challenges has honestly just been figuring out how to do everything the right way.
Coming from aviation, I am very much a by the book kind of guy. I am used to there being a standard, a procedure, and a clear expectation for how something should be done. If there is a rule, I want to know it and follow it.
That has probably made some parts of this business more frustrating for me, because there really is not an easy roadmap for starting a mobile coffee business.
You are trying to find vendors, develop a coffee recipe you actually believe in, source equipment, understand health department requirements, figure out commissary rules, insurance, licensing, and then make sure the whole operation works together.
Permitting has probably been one of the biggest challenges. Different counties and localities can have different processes, different expectations, and different people you need to talk to. When you are just trying to do things the right way, it can be hard to keep track of what applies where.
We have also spent a lot of time finding the right suppliers and figuring out the actual product. Developing our cold brew recipe took a lot more work than I expected. We wanted something we were genuinely proud of, but we also needed to be able to make it consistently at scale. There was a lot of testing, adjusting, and figuring out the process behind the coffee, not just how it tasted in one cup.
Then our trailer was delayed, which pushed our opening later than we had planned.
Once we finally got out there, though, the demand was there almost immediately. That was exciting, but it also created a new challenge because we were learning the operation while trying to keep up with customers at the same time.
I also thought I could probably go out and handle most of it myself while Kailyn was home with our newborn. I learned pretty quickly that I may have underestimated that part.
Thankfully, we have incredibly supportive family and friends who have been willing to step in and help us while Kailyn is less available. That support has made a huge difference and, honestly, it has reinforced why getting back home and being close to family was so important to us in the first place.
We are still learning all the time. Every event seems to teach us something about workflow, inventory, equipment, permitting, or just how much cold brew people can drink.
The demand has not really been the hard part. The challenge has been building everything behind it the right way so that we can keep growing without cutting corners.
That part matters a lot to me. I want just cold brew to be fun and not take itself too seriously, but behind the scenes, I want the operation to run the right way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about just cold brew?
just cold brew is exactly what it sounds like.
We specialize in cold brew and build everything around it. Plain cold brew, flavored drinks, cold foam, nitro, seasonal drinks, and some fun specials here and there.
What sets us apart is probably how focused we are.
We are not trying to be a full coffee shop on wheels. We are not doing espresso, hot coffee, frappes, or a massive menu. We would rather do one thing really well than try to be everything to everybody.
At the same time, we want coffee to feel really approachable.
There can sometimes be this feeling around coffee where you are supposed to know what you are ordering, know the terminology, or have a certain level of appreciation for it. That is just not us.
You can come up to our trailer, tell us you like something sweet, something simple, something strong, whatever, and we will help you find something.
We put a lot of effort into the quality behind the scenes. We spent a lot of time developing our cold brew, finding a quality roaster (Pinup Coffee Co), figuring out recipes, finding ingredients we like, and making sure drinks are consistent. I probably bring a little too much of my aviation background into that side of the business. I like processes, measurements, and knowing that if someone orders the same drink twice, it should taste the same both times.
But the customer should not have to see all of that work.
For them, it should just be a really good drink and a fun experience.
That is probably what I am most proud of brand wise. We have managed to build a brand that feels very much like us. The name is simple. The menu is simple. The look is clean. We can take the quality seriously without taking ourselves too seriously.
That is where “It’s not that serious. It’s just cold brew.” comes from.
It is funny because cold brew can almost be viewed as the lazy coffee of the coffee world, and we have kind of embraced that. We are not pretending to be coffee scientists or trying to impress somebody with how complicated we can make a drink.
We just want to make really good cold brew.
We also have a lot of fun with our drinks. Cold foam, seasonal flavors, interesting combinations, and drinks that look good are a big part of what we do, but we try to keep everything recognizable and easy to order. We never want the menu to feel like homework.
Being mobile is another big part of the brand. We can show up at markets, businesses, community events, private events, weddings, and places where people may not expect to find a really good coffee drink.
More than anything, I want people to know that just cold brew is supposed to be easy.
Come get a good coffee. Try something different. Talk to us for a minute. Bring your friends.
It’s not that serious.
It’s just cold brew.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Probably our family trips to the Outer Banks.
Some of my favorite memories are spending the whole day at the beach with my family. Throwing a football around with my brothers, fishing with my dad and grandfather, and just being outside from morning until we were ready to head in.
My great grandmother would make BLTs for lunch on the beach. Then there were the dolphin sandwiches from John’s Drive-In, which were always part of the trip too.
Those are the memories that have stuck with me the most. Being at the beach all day, fishing, eating good food, and spending time with family.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://justcoldbrew.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinkjustcoldbrew/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drinkjustcoldbrew/
- Other: hello@justcoldbrew.co
