Tres Manos is on the Move

Andy Mendoza’s first interaction with coffee was during his part-time job at the Food Mart gas station off of Lake Air Drive and Sanger Avenue. His colleagues all drank black coffee and being an impressionable 14 year old, he wanted to drink coffee too. Luckily, the store had its own cappuccino machine and with one push of a button, Mendoza could have a French vanilla cappuccino and an instant cool-factor amongst his coworkers. He now realizes that those drinks contained more sugar and milk than actual coffee, and it wasn’t until 2019 that Mendoza fell in love with the taste of coffee during his mission trip to Guatemala. 

After returning home from his trip, he was inspired to create Tres Manos Coffee, a coffee business on wheels — not the wheels of a car, but rather, a cart. 

“I can bring people together from all stages of life that are rich or poor, white or Black,” Mendoza said. “I’m trying to bring the neighbor down the street closer to the neighbor across the town, and that’s one way of doing that. Just giving them a good cup of coffee because a good cup of coffee sparks up a great conversation.”

Mendoza wheels his cart around town to weddings, business meetings, markets and any event that he is hired to do. While Mendoza is now the owner, barista and social media manager of his business, his family has supported this dream whether it be through encouragement or labor. 

“My family doesn’t come from a lot of money, but they gave me enough for what I needed,” Mendoza said. “So once we got enough money, we bought some things here and there and started slowly building the cart.”

Mendoza’s grandfather constructed the cart, his father-in-law installed the electrical wiring and other family members completed the plumbing. Now that the cart was built, Mendoza had to build his brand. Tres Manos was inspired by Mendoza’s feeling of not knowing where to go after high school. He described it as being stuck in the desert, but what brought him out of that place was the hands of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — Tres Manos, three hands. 

“It’s not my hands that are doing this, it’s not by machine,” Mendoza said. “It’s by the hands of the Father and the Spirit, by his strength that he’s able to repeat that. So three hands at a time to get people together and bring them over a good cup of coffee.”

Mendoza also joined hands with local business owners such as Andreas Zaloumis, owner of Thrst Coffee Shop where he met Hayden Swearengin, owner of Loyalhood Syrups. Swearengin recently collaborated with Tres Manos Coffee to create a specialty syrup with inspiration from Mendoza’s love of west Texas. 

“He liked it better because it doesn’t taste the same as Monin (syrup brand), but I think that it stands out on its own,” Swearengin said. “The desert pear syrup has prickly pear and a little bit of orange zest and Tajin.” 

Even though the Desert Pear syrup isn’t used for coffee, it goes well with Mendoza’s lemonade and can be used for cocktails at home, which perfectly matches Tres Manos’ mission to bring people together, no matter what the circumstances are. 

While a brick-and-mortar for Tres Manos is not in the works, it will not prevent Mendoza from serving coffee to the Waco community. When asked what makes Tres Manos different from all of the other local coffee shops, he simply responded, “It’s the strong desire to bring the neighborhood together.” 

Tres Manos is solely a catering and pop-up business. To request its services, visit their website.