Sips Coffee Truck owners Eric and Jen Allman wanted to incorporate a bridge in the business design as a way to convey their community spirit. (Photo by Candice Black)

PARKERSBURG –Four weeks after debuting a coffee truck, Sips Coffee Truck owners Jen and Eric Allman are overwhelmed with the positive feedback and support from the community.

After feeling the need to get out more, the Allmans decided to take to the streets to serve coffee bring people together and develop personal relationships with locals.

“We’ve seen how we became more isolated ourselves and then with kids and family responsibilities and with COVID, everything got locked down and people just went into their little sheltered zones. We wanted to get out and do more things in the community but we’re too old to go to the bars,” Eric Allman, a Edison Middle School social studies teacher, said.

As an alternative to the bar scene, the Allmans wanted to create a mobile ‘bar’ for people in different parts of the community to have access to good coffee and conversation.

“I look at the social aspect of how clubs and taverns fill the role in a community. We’re having conversations with people, getting to know people. We have been in parking lots that have been vacant that now have tailgate parties of people just hanging out and talking,” Eric Allman said.

Sips Coffee Truck owner Eric Allman chats with a customer while stationed at Westbrook Health Services on Seventh Street in Parkersburg this week. (Photo by Candice Black)

For the past eight years, Jen Allman was a traveling scrub nurse and was out of town most days of the week.

“Working in Columbus was the closest I had been to home in the last eight years. We’re getting ready to adopt our daughter so I just wanted to be home more too,” Jen Allman said. The couple is also about to adopt a 4-year-old son who was 18 months old when they began fostering and their daughter was 2 days old when they brought her home.

“She’s a great mother but she was gone three days a week. We (said) ‘we want mommy to be home, what can we do with mommy being home that’s going to allow her more freedom to spend more time with the family?'” Eric Allman said.

Everything came together when Jen Allman decided she wanted to make coffee, she said. In a short amount of time, the community embraced it, the Allmans said.

“I think people want to socialize, they want to get out, they want to do things, they want to see something new,” Eric Allman said.

When people are able to take the time to stop and chat for a few minutes after they order their coffee, the Allmans enjoy connecting with people and learn more about their lives. The couple is shocked at how many friends they’ve made within the past four weeks.

“We’re finding out what’s going on with their kids, their lives, their families are growing, they’re moving houses, they’re starting careers, they’re going back to school,” Eric Allman said.

Because it’s not as accessible as a drive through, Jen Allman said she’s grateful people make the effort to go to the truck’s different locations and she said several people are repeat customers. Sips will launch a Buy-A-Cup program in a few weeks which will involve events with other local vendors to provide free drinks to first responders, healthcare workers, teachers or social workers.

“We’re working on bringing that together and putting it maybe at the park to where other vendors, other artists can come out and showcase their products and their talents,” Eric Allman said.

The people have spoken and they want Sips in their parking lot. The Allmans said they’ve had several businesses and individuals reach out and invite them to set up in their lot.

“Everybody who comes up as a customer, we try to treat them as a friend,” Eric Allman said. “(In) my role as a social studies teacher, I am working on building responsible citizens in my classroom, getting those young people involved in their community. Now, on some level, this is a bigger, grander social experiment.”

Compared to her career in the medical profession, Jen Allman said their coffee truck venture has renewed her sense of peace and balance.

“I’ve had the best time in the last four weeks. It’s just night and day from what I was doing. I get a renewal of energy from doing this,” she said.

Sips Coffee Truck will be at Harmar Days this weekend with their crafted “Harmar Hugger” drink.

More information about Sips and its schedule can be found on the Sips Coffee Truck Facebook page.