The story behind Sugar Moon

The most common question I get by far is definitely:

How did you go from being a physical therapist to owning a mobile bar business. Well, I’ll tell you…

In 2019, I had been a physical therapist for 20 years. I loved my career, and I knew that I was called to be a physical therapist in college. I loved helping people and seeing them improve! I was fulfilled by the calling and the career of physical therapy. I loved teaching students that interned with me and seeing how their confidence grew as they learned techniques to help others. I loved working with in a team setting in a clinic environment with other professionals all with the same goal of helping our patients. I loved being a specialized manipulative physical therapist with special education and skills to help difficult and complex diagnoses. And I loved it for 20 years.

But there were some things I didn’t love. I didn’t love the inability to determine my own worth and increase how much we could charge for our services due to limitations of insurance contracts and limits on reimbursement. I didn’t love working on such an intense daily schedule with no breaks, and charting during lunch and after work and on weekends. I didn’t love that my hands and wrists were suffering after 20 years of intense manual manipulations of human bodies. After 20 years, and being an expert in my field and part-owner in a private practice, I could not afford to give myself a raise. I did not love that. I was ready for a change.

I was ready for a slower pace, with more control over my schedule, more flexibility day-to-day, and the ability to determine my worth and to raise prices if and when the market would allow. Basic economic principles support the concept that every business should be able to adapt to changes related to the cost of providing their product or service. Shoot my hairdresser and lawyer raise their prices whenever they need to! But we couldn’t do that in outpatient physical therapy.

Then, there was definitely a shift in my entire outlook on life in 2011 when I was diagnosed with colon cancer. No doubt having cancer at the age of 35, encourages a person to evaluate what is important in life, and how you want to spend the rest of it. Suddenly I had this irresistible desire for change – almost a panic – to make sure that whatever was left of the rest of my life was spent with more control over my minutes. Lowering my stress level, making space for creativity and ensuring flexibility on a daily basis, all became priority numero uno. I began praying for a career change and what that should be and what that would look like.

In 2019 while treating one of my sweet patients who had just gotten engaged, she was telling me all about her search for a wedding venue for her 2020 wedding. So, I was asking her questions, and she was telling me about the venues she liked where you have a ceremony in a field with a mountain view and then use the barn for the reception. So cool! I’d seen that on Pinterest! So, I asked her if I could be nosy and ask how much something like that costs. She said it depended on the time of year and day of the week but in general anywhere from $8k-$12k for a 12hr rental of the property. And I’m like, oh and that must include everything like, food, linens, tables, chairs, etc. And she says no. Just the use of the venue. Come again. What? Do you mean I can live on a ranch (my ranch-girl in a city-girl life dream!) and rent out the property for people to use for their wedding?? Uhm, where do I sign! This sounds like my perfect retirement-from-PT change in career! I started shopping for properties that night, found a realtor, and started working on a business plan. Literally, that night.

We looked at dozens of properties, and ultimately came close on 4 properties between 2019 and 2021. Alas, the ranch-life wedding venue dream has not come true. But what developed out of that dream is totally awesome! You see, in writing all of those business plans, I had to do tons of research on market trends. I dare you to just try to google “wedding trends” and see if you don’t see a mobile bar come up in that search! Adorable horse trailers, converted campers, 3-wheeled mini trucks, all converted to cute little bars. So, of course I had worked that into my business plan for the wedding venue idea; I’d planned to have a couple of those on the property, so that couples could rent them, in addition to renting the venue, as an add-on rental option.  

It was 2020 and one of the properties that we came VERY close to purchasing fell through in February. I was devastated. I’d poured hundreds of hours into writing the business plan, research, meetings and of course, dreaming. And in my mind, I was going to retire from PT and start this new phase of life – soon. So, when it fell through, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around continuing my career as a PT indefinitely. And Congress had just voted that there would be a reimbursement cut for outpatient physical therapy. So, after 20 years, I was getting a pay cut from Medicare. All of the other health insurance contracts followed suit and we were going to get less money for each patient visit. The straw that broke the camel’s back.

So now I’m thinking, I don’t have a wedding venue, but I don’t want to be a full-time PT and practice owner anymore. What the heck should I do? And then a lightbulb. What if I just rent the cute little converted bars I had written into my wedding venue business plan? Is that a thing? Or do you have to be a bartender to rent one of those out? I don’t want to be a bartender. I just want to own the cute thing and rent it out. So, I call someone I’d met at a bridal show (during my market research!) who worked for Peak Beverage to ask a few questions. He forwarded me to Adam Douglas. The overwhelming positive reaction Adam had to my idea was just what I needed! I had conversations with multiple other people in the industry, as well as my financial advisor and CPA and of course my amazing husband, who all supported my crazy idea. My family planned an intervention phone call because you know, leaving a professional and pandemic-proof career in the middle of a pandemic makes people think you’ve lost your marbles – and by the end of the call they were all onboard and in full support too! And by March 2020 (yes Covid was just getting started) I put in my resignation with my private practice fellow owners and bought a 1958 Mercury Camper off of Facebook Marketplace! I rented my friend’s vacant barn and created a workshop to begin restoration of the camper. I continued to work full-time as a PT until June 2020. Then I retired from PT, sold my private practice shares and I was full time into restoration of “Betty” the Camper Bar! I found “Otho” the Tap Truck in August of 2020 and restoration began on him at Triple J Cushman & Restoration in October 2020. I spent all of 2020 restoring our bars (with the help of many friends, family, and professionals!), creating the business model and…I loved every minute of it. We officially launched the business in June of 2021 and took our first reservation in July of 2021. And as they say…the rest is history!

The second most common question I get asked:

Do you still practice PT?

Yes! I am keeping my PT license, of course! I worked really hard for that education and experience. And I still fill in occasionally at the clinic I used to own. And I still enjoy helping people! I just don’t want to be a full-time clinician anymore. But I have some things coming down the pipe to put my PT education to good use, with less strain on my body, so stay tuned!