By Manasi Kaushik & Michael Davis

A 19-year-old sophomore-entrepreneur, Lucas Philips, has founded the first ever student-run coffee business – Brew Bike – on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus.

The business started primarily as a bike operation, where Philips and his friends sold cold brew on a tricycle on “good weather days”, but with its recent expansion of a storefront at Annenberg Hall, operations and profits have escalated exponentially for Brew Bike.

“Tuesday was the first day we’ve ever operated the bike and the shop together. It was kinda rainy that morning and 50 degrees and cloudy all day long and we still sold 50 percent more coffee than we did on our average day in the fall which was, you know, sunny 70 plus degree day,” says Philips.

He says that expanding to other universities in Chicago is a possibility but “I love being physically present when the business is running” and thus wishes to expand more on Northwestern’s campus for now.