Meet Your Barista

I was a 13-year-old hockey player when Canada hosted our last Winter Olympic Games. I watched short track speed skating on TV with my dad, and I knew then and there, seeing this sport for the first time, I needed to try it. Vancouver sparked the dream. Two years later, I traded in the hockey skates for speed skates, and set my sights on one day wearing the maple leaf on my back.

In the winter of 2018, I stepped on a starting line to represent Canada at my international debut. At this point, I knew that the goal I had set for myself as a young boy was within reach. With enough hard work, I might one day be able to compete at an Olympic Games for this country. At this point, I also realized there would be some hefty costs associated with getting there.

Sport isn’t funded the way it used to be a decade or so ago. I am very thankful for the support I receive from Sport Canada, but it simply doesn’t cover every cost athletes encounter over a competitive season. I work part time as an ice technician at the Olympic Oval, but I needed other ways to fund my career, and also to prepare myself financially for the future. In all honesty, I was struggling to save money. I budgeted down to the very last dollar to live in modest comfort and compete at my best.

Early in our 2020-21 season, most of us were training individually, per COVID protocols. I was in the middle of a bike workout in May of 2020 when I had the idea to start my own business. I thought, 'why not a mobile cafe?' I love coffee and the whole coffee-making process. But how or what was I going to work from? As a kid, I used to collect model cars, and many of them were French, since my father was born and raised in France. I decided to try to find an old Citroen 2CV Camionnette. The ‘Deux Chevaux’ was the vehicle that motorized France for nearly half a century, so there was no question. That would be my cafe on wheels.

You know you’re on the right track when things just fall into place. I found a gentleman in Surrey, B.C., who had newly finished restoring a beautiful 1978 2CV Truckette. Within a few weeks, I was driving back home through the mountains to Calgary, towing my brainstorm on a trailer. The next trick was figuring out how to squeeze a cafe into something about a quarter of the size of your average food truck.

Alberta Health certified the truckette for service in April of 2021, and since then I have been working private events, pop ups around the city of Calgary, and even serving fire halls in my spare time. We went from vision to reality in just under a year and it’s been everything I wanted and 10 times more.

For me, this business wasn’t just about cash flow. It was a way for me to be in control of my work hours. Training full time with the National Development Long Track Speed Skating Team, it’s tough to work a regular part-time job. We average two workouts a day, and there are very few employers who can work around that schedule. And rest is as important as training when you are trying to achieve greatness.

For the first time in my life, I am my own boss. I can schedule bookings around my training. I can keep my focus on the ice and most importantly, I can rest properly. The new business has built some momentum and people seem to adore the concept.

The Hayloft Cafe is Canadian athlete owned and operated. I actually have that painted on the side of the truckette! The brand resonates, as marketing gurus say.

The 1988 Winter Olympics are quite a ways in the past now, and unfortunately, Calgary’s Olympic spirit has dwindled over the years, especially with the loss of the 2026 bid. So one of my goals with the cafe was for it to be a way to connect with the community that supports me and my teammates here.

Skaters have few formal opportunities to chat with people outside of the sport. In my eyes, that’s a pity, because lots of people like hearing stories from high-performance athletes. I am in a position now though where many of my customers ask about my sport, my goals, how I got there and so on, and I can happily chat with them as I make their cup of coffee. For some, it has even been the conversation they needed to find that extra motivation to chase their own dreams. To me, that is an awesome payoff for the work that went into building the cafe.

Right now, focus is on the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games. The truckette is going to help get me there. I am thankful to the community for embracing me and the business. Hayloft Cafe is mobile, but it is here to stay. I can’t wait to see it grow, even as I do the same as a skater.