Belly on up to the Bus: Bubble Bus Co.'s Mobile Bar on the Go

Take a classic pay-it-forward scenario and couple it with the tenacity to succeed and you get how one local business found its niche in the drink catering market. In fact, the story behind how the Bubble Bus Co. became what it is, could be made into a feel-good movie ready for any streaming platform.

But the reality of this business really comes down to the visionary husband-and-wife team of Clay and Lena Sexauer. Chances are, if you’ve been to any large North Texas event in the last couple of years, you may have seen one of their popups.

Their eye-catching calling card consists of several unique classic Volkswagen buses retrofitted with bar capabilities used for single events. Each bus, and a classic car and bike, serve as mobile bartending units, complete with taps. Since 2019, Bubble Bus Co. has been the go-to business when it comes to having your libations and drinking them too.

Yet, this once side hustle turned full-time gig almost didn’t make it past the Sexauers’ garage. It would take a series of serendipitous incidents and a chance VW bus spotting in Columbia of all places, to get the ball rolling.

“Our whole story started when we were at a brewery in Colorado Springs that was celebrating its 13-year anniversary,” Clay Sexauer says while opening one of the panels on the back of his prized 1966 Double Cab Volkswagen truck. “During this celebration they did a car show of Volkswagen vans. That’s when we quickly realized no one was actually serving beer out any of the vans.”

Sexauer says that’s when the idea hit him to buy a Volkswagen van and turn it into a mobile bar. With this idea now fully churning in the couple’s heads, Sexauer says he and his wife began to look for a Volkswagen bus after leaving that very party.

“We found our first bus in Arlington back in August of 2019,” he says. “Then we started the business in November of that same year.”

Sexauer says he was excited to get started since, at that time, no one in DFW was offering this style of bartending services for events. “We felt that we had a great idea, but on the flip side, no one really understood what a mobile bar was.”  

The concept of having a fully customizable drink menu delivered to a specific event began to catch on after a few months of hard work, Sexauer says. What put the entire business plan on hold was the global pandemic shutdown in March 2020. Combine that with Sexauer being laid off from a job after only three weeks, a position he had sought for a while.

“This was supposed to be my side hustle not a full-time gig,” Sexauer explains. “But I know now I wasn’t where I was supposed to be yet.”

With the summer waning, and most everything closed, Sexauer says he and his wife devised a plan to do something positive.

“One week while we were sitting on our porch looking at our bus in the driveway, we decided to get three kegs of beer and 75 popsicles for our neighborhood,” he says.

The Sexauers spread the word about their morale-boosting idea on social media, by asking their neighbors to sit outside in their lawn chairs so the couple could pour the adults a beer and give the kids a popsicle. “We told everyone that this was on us, we weren’t selling anything,” Sexauer says. “We just wanted to spread some cheer and good times.”

As the couple strolled through their neighborhood handing out cheer, Sexauer says neighborhood residents would hand him and his wife tips through the window of their VW bus. When the couple got back to their home and counted the tips, they realized they had recouped enough cash to pay it forward again for a second event. “From there we just went to Instagram and Facebook and all we said was, ‘Who wants free beer?’”

Sexauer says he and his wife decided to make the next event a contest, tasking all of the neighborhoods in their immediate area to post the most comments. The hood with the most comments would be crowned the winner.

“The next night, we went to the winning neighborhood and told them we were accepting tips, but it wasn’t necessary to do so,” he says. “We just explained that any tips we received would be used to pay it forward to the next neighborhood and so on.”

These events became known as the #PayItForward contests, which began to gain substantial organic traffic on the couple’s social media accounts. “Neighborhoods were sharing it and it just blew up … it was crazy,” Sexauer says. “Within the first two weeks, we hosted like 16 neighborhoods. Our business since then has just grown, and that was late April of 2020.”

From there the couple’s initial concept began to take hold in the zeitgeist of the DFW area in the form of social distancing parties. Sexauer says he could see people start to catch on to what he and his wife had initially envisioned for their business.  

With their business model on the upswing due to word of mouth and social media, Sexauer says the couple’s next step was to try and expand from one bus to two.

This is where the story of Sexauers’ prized 1966 Double Cab Volkswagen truck comes into play. Sexauer says while he and his wife were talking about expanding, she told him of a VW double cap she had seen while visiting her home country of Columbia. After reaching out to the seller to verify that he still had the vehicle for sale, Sexauer says his wife immediately bought a plane ticket back home to begin the process of trying to procure the eye-catching classic auto.

While in the process of buying the double cab, Sexauer says his wife began doing research on how to bring the vehicle back to the U.S. “We realized that we had enough room to fit another vehicle in a shipping container to import back here,” he says. “She also found a green VW bus for sale so then we had two buses shipped back to us.”

Once everything cleared customs, Sexauer says he and his wife began to retrofit the classic VWs with tap lines and a custom white oak wood finish. Besides some minor mechanical work, Sexauer says the two buses were already in pristine condition.

Today, BBC provides mobile bar and bartending services for any type of event including HOA, big or small, public or private parties, indoors and outdoors.

“We are all about convenience for our customers,” Sexauer explains. “We help clients determine the number of drinks they will need and craft their favorite drinks made from fresh ingredients and premium spirits.”

Sexauer says BBC provides cups, ice, garnishes, and bartending services. Want to host a spirits-free party, BBC also offers a nonalcoholic drink menu.

“We cover primarily the DFW area, but if someone in Montgomery, Texas, wants me to do an event, I will most definitely put together a quote and do it in Montgomery,” Sexauer says. “We travel everywhere as a completely turn-key service.”

BBC is TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) licensed and fully insured, which allows the company to provide everything drinkwise at an event.

“We try to provide a service that people will talk about,” Sexauer says. “This is a family-run business, and we take pride in taking care of our customers and our clients and creating an experience that is unforgettable. We do this because, at the end of the day, we understand that’s how we can expand our business and that’s what we are passionate about.”