Kaelyn Benoit
The Southern Editor
When Morning Grind first debuted on campus in 2023, the student-created coffee cart made waves as the first of its kind on campus. Providing opportunities for student employment, entrepreneurial innovation, and engaged learning, Morning Grind has functioned as a “learning lab” since its inception. In partnership with the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship and the Barney Barnett School of Business at Florida Southern, Morning Grind has served not just as a space for customers to purchase coffee and other products, but also as a space for students to gain real hands-on experience in the entrepreneurship field.
Morning Grind became a reality, in part due to FSC’s business incubation program, Seed-to-Scale. Led by Justin Heacock, the Director for the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, this program allows students to take their ideas and turn them into a startup company, providing them the resources and funding to start from the ground up.
“The whole point of the program is to have students get empowered to see opportunities in existing business and go through and execute those.” Heacock said, “To own the success or failure, whichever way they come about, but doing it in a way where you don’t have the financial burden. We want every student at FSC to have that chance.”
While the coffee cart holds its permanent location within the Becker Business Building, this entrepreneurial spirit and involvement is not just limited to Business majors. Heacock describes the learning lab as “interdisciplinary” in nature.
“When we started [Morning Grind], we hired nine students from seven majors. We found Criminology, Computer Science, Communications, and Business Majors.” Heacock said, “If you just have all business majors create a business, it’s going to be pretty standard. Bringing in that different perspective from majors across campus lets you create something truly unique and personable.”
This mix of perspectives has allowed for the cart to grow from serving coffee in a tent outside of the Becker Business Building to a fully fledged and operational cart, serving various menu items such as specialty teas, croissants, hot “Moc” chocolate, and more.
Despite the grand opening for the cart happening over a year ago, the drive for innovation and brainstorming has not stopped. In fact, for CEO Andrew Bowling, this is just the beginning.
“We realized we needed a CEO, because we are a flat organization, and we needed more structure for the team.” Bowling said, “I’ve really enjoyed it, seeing the behind the scenes of what most people don’t see in a business.”
Having worked for two semesters at Morning Grind, Senior Andrew Bowling took on his role after being voted in by the Morning Grind team. Starting by creating a SWOT analysis and a strategic plan, from there he created operations documents, procedures documents, and reviewed the company’s processes to make sure everything was up to the vision of the entire team.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with this team and just making sure we’re driving towards this one goal that we all have in mind.” Bowling said.
Recently, Morning Grind has been testing out new expansion methods. From delivery to catering and beyond, they have been able to test the waters while expanding their outreach across campus.
“We just recently catered one of the Homecoming events, and it went really well.” Bowling said, “The school has really enjoyed it, seeing that it is student run. The faculty that was there and the alumni loved it.”
Moving into 2025, Morning Grind has debuted a brand new mobile cart, donated by the Baldwin Group in Lakeland. Along with a new drip coffee machine and the implementation of Boba soon to come to the menu, there are many plans on the horizon for the company.
“Going forward, my goal is to try and get some form of physical location, or just more locations on campus.” Bowling said, describing the hope to cater to more students across campus. “There are so many events, and we want to expand as much as possible. It would help generate a lot more revenue for the business, and being able to expand to a lot more locations and to hire more people is the main goal.”
Since its creation, Morning Grind has empowered students to think outside of the box. From problem solving to learning to laugh at mistakes and moving forward with confidence, the entirely student run staff maintains a collaborative and team-driven work environment.
“Our team is very collaborative. We have team meetings every Wednesday, and we’re getting to the point where it’s more about teamwork together and we’re following up on more stuff. I’ve been driving people to reach out with ideas, and it has really been working, which I like.” Bowling said.
Team members are encouraged to bring forward new ideas, reach out to people on campus, and to take an active part in the next steps of the company. From product development to campus outreach, Morning Grind has provided no shortage of student opportunities, and will undoubtedly continue to provide more room for student innovation in the years to come.
This journey can be followed at @morninggrind_fsc on Instagram, or via the company website morninggrindfsc.com.
