The wheels on the bus: Community Grounds prepares to go mobile

In helping to launch Community Grounds, which began leasing the space at 1134 Parsons Ave. in 2015, Tara Mullins-Cosme committed to try to make the business work for at least a decade, viewing the 10-year mark as a reasonable point to pause and reassess. 

With that time having lapsed, Mullins-Cosme began to take stock earlier this year, the serial entrepreneur coming to realize that the things she appreciated about the shop (the sense of community; the ability to platform rising artists and artisans) had gradually been superseded by the challenges inherent with being tethered to a physical space.

“If your passion is in four walls, then you have to make space for everything that comes with that,” Mullins-Cosme said in mid-July from the shop, which is in its final week of operation, with a closing date set for Tuesday, Aug. 5. “And I think our passion does not have to be between four walls.”

Rather, it will now be set on four wheels. Recently, Mullins-Cosme and husband Joel Cosme purchased a Chicago bus converted by a previous owner into a rolling cafe, which beginning this fall will become home to a new, mobile version of Community Grounds. In discussing the pivot, Mullins-Cosme described the decision as necessary, introducing needed flexibility while better aligning the business with what had been her vision from childhood.

“When I was in middle school, my friend’s parents took us to this little town in Ohio where someone had made a barbershop in a train car, and even in middle school I was like, ‘The only thing wrong with this is that it’s not on a track so you can actually take it somewhere,’” said Mullins-Cosme, who was reminded of this childhood dream in a recent conversation with her brother, an executive coach with a knack for drilling down on those forces that motivate a person. “And he said to me, ‘You know, you’ve always thrived when you’re untethered.’ And I think it was hard for me to see, but as soon as he said the words, it was like, oh, that’s it. I mean, I’ve said before, ‘I just wish we could take this [building] to our church parking lot.’”

Once permits have been secured and renovations to the interior of the bus completed, Community Grounds will have that flexibility, with Mullins-Cosme envisioning it as a mobile cafe outfitted with a couple of small tables and serving a menu of food and drinks familiar to longtime customers. (A kitchen share with current neighboring business Two Dollar Radio Headquarters will allow the couple to prepare menu items for sale on the bus.) 

Ahead of the pivot, Mullins-Cosme has worked to further cement relationships that will allow the business to maintain a presence on the South Side Parsons Avenue corridor, including one with Families First Cremation and Funeral at Edwards, which recently granted Community Grounds permission to operate the revamped bus from its parking lot at 1166 Parsons Ave. “Having a presence on the Avenue is really important to us,” Mullins-Cosme said.

At the same time, Mullins-Cosme said that the ability to take the space on the road could help the business become a better community steward, recalling how Community Grounds provided free coffee to striking teachers in Gahanna in 2020, which required Joel to load the beverages into the back of his car and truck them across town. In the future, the shop could simply roll up to the location and provide support on site. “We want there to be a few anchor spots, so we can still meet the needs of people who rely on us for that consistency, like those folks where we’re their Saturday walk stop, but I want to have that flexibility, too,” she said.

Mullins-Cosme first encountered the bus, which was designed and built to resemble an early trolley car, on Facebook Marketplace toward the end of 2023, believing it to be financially out of reach at the time but clicking and saving the listing regardless. When the seller halved the price a couple of months back, Mullins-Cosme received a notice, leading to a trip to Chicago and the relatively quick striking of a deal. (The bus is now in Columbus, parked in a semi-truck lot not far from the current brick-and-mortar.)

While certain aspects of the business will undoubtedly shift – Mullins-Cosme doesn’t envision the rolling cafe maintaining a full seven-days-a-week schedule – the hope is to carry over those parts of Community Grounds that have made it such a unique presence on the city’s South Side these last 10 years. This includes preserving room to display the work of local artists, along with a dedicated mercantile space for new and rising sellers to display their wares. “We had one woman whose stuff we carried – greeting cards and stickers – and now her line is in Target,” Mullins-Cosme said. “I love watching people outgrow being a good fit for us. It’s my favorite thing.”

Most important, though, is maintaining Community Grounds as a place where in-person connections can still take root and thrive, which is part of what deterred the couple from pursuing a more traditional food truck, where patrons make a purchase and then are free to more naturally drift elsewhere. 

“I’ve always wanted Community Grounds to feel like a place where folks can settle in,” Mullins-Cosme said. “So, when you ask about those things I want to carry forward [into the new mobile shop], the essence will remain. … And while it won’t look the same, I hope it’s familiar enough that it still feels like here.”