A popular campus food truck will no longer just be available on wheels.
Hub Bub, owned by 2005 College graduate Drew Crockett, is a coffee truck that is expanding to a non-mobile location in Center City scheduled to open Jan. 14. The truck is located on 38th and Spruce streets and the new location will be located on 17th and Arch streets.
“We have always wanted to do something in a brick-and-mortar setting,” Crockett said. “The next logical step seemed like opening a store.”
Crockett, who used to work in New York, began to frequent food trucks offering coffee on his way to work. Hub Bub was born out of a perceived lack of food trucks offering “quality” coffee on campus.
“Penn has always been a community that is really comfortable eating out of food trucks,” he said. “We wanted to try and engage customers in a different way.”
Crockett founded the business in 2009 with a commitment to social responsibility in mind. Both the baked goods it sells and the milk it uses are locally sourced, Crockett said.
Hub Bub Coffee Bar, the food truck’s Center City counterpart, will continue the brand’s commitment to social responsibility. The store will also partner with other businesses with a social commitment like Philly Compost.
College junior Arielle Fogel, a former Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer, said she is “so excited” about the truck expanding to Center City.
“I used to visit the food truck almost every other day,” Fogel said. “Their coffee tastes really fresh … it wakes me up.”
Like Fogel, Wharton and College sophomore Manasvi Koul, who has visited the food truck a few times, appreciated the truck’s “really good” coffee.
“The person working at the food truck was also really nice,” Koul said. “[The coffee] was a nice pick-me-up in the morning.”
College senior Jennifer Chan, who also frequents Hub Bub, said she would recommend visiting the Center City location because she doesn’t think too many distributors in Philadelphia offer the store’s locally sourced coffee.
“They offer not-too-outrageous a price, and the pastries are pretty tasty,” Chan said. “It is a good idea for Philadelphia to expand [its] gourmet coffee selection.”
Ultimately, Crockett believes the brand’s unique outlook towards coffee is what will draw people to the new store.
“What we are really about is bringing people together through the medium of coffee,” Crockett said. “We think we have something great going, and we want to offer it to different parts of the city.”
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