'From the ground up': Molon Latte serves coffee on the go in Jackson

Nearly five centuries before the birth of Christ, when King Leonidas screamed “Molon labe!” or “Come and get [them]!” to the Persian armed forces at the Battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece, he was daring the invaders to come and get the weapons his Spartan troops held at the ready. When husband and wife team Billy and Kristen Lewis named their mobile coffee shop Molon Latte, it was a nod to Leonidas’ fighting spirit, to the pair’s shared military background, and to their shared mentality.

“We’re both Army veterans and have that ‘Never quit, never give up’ attitude and mentality,” Billy Lewis said. “When King Leonidas stood against the gap at Thermopylae, he was saying, ‘We are going to stand firm at what we believe, defend our piece of freedom. No one will take it from us.’”

Last year, while the Lewises were brainstorming names for the coffee company, Kristen Lewis popped up with, “Molon Latte: Come and drink it,” and it stuck.

“It speaks to who we are,” Billy Lewis added. “We’re both veterans who served overseas. We take ownership.”

Why a coffee company?

Billy Lewis knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but when he left the military in 2011, he didn’t have an education in business, so he went to school, earning a Master of Business Administration and a doctorate. He worked in the corporate world, but, he said, “I knew I wanted to have something I had built from the ground up.”

A coffee company both Billy and Kristen Lewis knew in Kuwait was called Green Beans, and in the military realm is a well-known coffee franchise, Billy Lewis said.

“It became a constant,” he said.

He was deployed twice to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, he said, and when the two of them were able to sit down together at the coffee shop that was always there and escape from the world around them, that was a powerful memory to them both.

There were several business venture ideas over the years, but a coffee shop kept coming up, Kristen Lewis said.

And, she said, last fall, a lot of elements came together. Their children were older, Billy Lewis’ job as a teacher at Jackson High School afforded him some time over breaks to have a side business, and their son had a teacher who was wanting to sell a horse trailer that could be converted to what is now Molon Latte.

They stripped the trailer down to its frame and rebuilt it as a fully mobile coffee shop, Billy Lewis said.

In April, they passed the health department’s inspection, and were up and running soon after.

Since it’s a mobile unit, the shop can operate while Billy Lewis is on break from teaching, during the summer and on holidays, Kristen Lewis explained — and they are available for special events and catering.

“We’re self sufficient,” Billy Lewis said. “We can pretty well pick up and go where we’re needed.”

Molon Latte has set up in Jackson City Park and the Jackson Farmers Market. More information is at www.facebook.com/MOLONLATTE.

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