From basement side hustle to Rhode Island coffee startup [Video]

After months of bringing in less than $100 a day, Audrey Finocchiaro and her then-boyfriend Sam Lancaster were close to walking away from their coffee cart.

They built the wooden cart with bicycle tires and a kickstand in her parents’ basement in 2016, maxing out her credit card’s $1,500 limit to afford materials, and called it The Nitro Cart. That summer, they took it to any event that would take them, from sheep shearing events to farmers markets across Rhode Island, serving small batches of nitrogen-infused cold brew.

“Sam and I had been popping up every day together, and when you’re not making any money and you’re also dating, that can get sort of frustrating,” says Finocchiaro, 30. “At the end of the summer, we were sort of like, we don’t want to do this anymore.”

A gaggle of college students changed their mind that fall, when Lancaster took the …