I Moved to Bozeman Just for a Stupid Cup of
Coffee and a 1969 Chevy Pickup Truck Seat
Written by: Keona Borge
I was looking for a quick backpacking getaway from Salt Lake, Utah during my fall break from teaching. I landed in Bozeman, Montana with just my dog, my 2002 Subaru, a sleeping bag, and my backpack. When I wasn’t hiking, I knew I needed to be working on my graduate school applications. I bounced around different coffee shops, piecing together my resume, and asking locals for hike recommendations. I landed at the Roly-Poly coffee garage — a garage that’s been modified into a coffee shop — on Broadway Ave. With Willie Nelson playing on the record player, and a taxidermied wild boar on the wall, it immediately felt like home. I returned to Salt Lake City, UT, and, after a few months, received my admissions letters to the different graduate programs I had applied for. I had fruitful offers, but only one in a town where I could get a stupid cup of coffee and sit on an old chevy pickup seat: Montana State University (MSU). Honestly, that little eccentric coffee garage was the tipping point for me in my decision to move to Bozeman and attend MSU. Having lived in Bozeman almost a year now, I decided I needed to talk to the jolly Aviator-ed, bearded owner, Taylor Wallace, and get an understanding of how Roly-Poly came to be.
Taylor is a barista from Texas who moved to Bozeman for an office job (while selling coffee out of his Ford Bronco as a side gig). After hearing of the passing of his father, Bryan Wallace, Taylor began to get an itch to work with coffee again.
“I quickly began to miss it. And what I missed most about it was the way that I got to interact with the community and new people, and kind of make a space for people to get together.”
To Taylor, coffee isn’t just coffee. It’s a symbol of returning to your roots, what brings you joy, and providing joy for others. After his father passed away, Taylor decided to return to what was most important to him — making coffee. “Anytime something traumatic like that happens, it reframes the way you think about everything. And I decided that I was done working in an office and just gonna get back into coffee.”
Starting with just an espresso machine, his wife, Sarah bought him, and the bed of his pickup truck, Taylor was able to turn his humble beginnings into a profitable business. Taylor attributes his success to the support of his family, community, and friends.
“And day one, you know, making coffee out of the back of the truck, people were kind of, like, looking at me sideways, like, what the hell is this guy doing? And really confused about it. But the couple of people that came through on that first day understood and got the coffee that I was making and enjoyed it. I just knew immediately that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do.”
After four years of working out of the bed of his truck, Taylor was able to move his business to a garage. “I had moved the truck into a little garage on land and kind of retrofitted this garage to have a little kind of clubhouse kind of a vibe. Yeah, it didn’t have running water, just kind of a funny scene, but people really loved it. We had a little wood fire stove going in there, so you could stay warm, but still out of the back of the truck.”
While the garage provided Taylor and Sarah with a more permanent location for their coffee, the health department informed Taylor he wouldn’t be able to continue using his mobile license. Taylor was eventually able to move into a different garage — with running water this time, bringing him to the current location on Broadway Ave.
“Truck was parked by the garage, and in December of that year, the health department kind of laid down the law because I had a license, but it was a mobile license. They weren’t cool with me operating a mobile license inside of a garage, basically, which is totally understandable, I knew it was going to be a temporary thing and that’s when we landed here.”
The Roly-Poly on Broadway is adorned with American, Texas, and LGBTQIA+ flags, bear rugs, Bozeman newspaper clippings, a Tyler, the Creator poster, and vintage magazines. The seating is, of course, vintage truck bench seats and wooden tables right next to a re-cord player, playing country artists like Johnny Cash or John Conlee. With a broad display of personality and interests, the Roly-Poly can appeal to all kinds of people. Taylor explained his inspiration behind his eclectic decor, while also explaining where he got the name “Roly-Poly.”
“I like to think that Roly-Poly is for everybody. My dad passing away was a big inspiration about this place, and so everything right down to the name of it — “Roly-Poly” is a song by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, and that was a song that we used to hear growing up. My dad was obsessed with Bob Wills, a lot of the things that are hanging on the walls is stuff that came out of my dad’s house, or kind of look like they could have been in his house.”
(If you haven’t heard the song “Roly-Poly,” please look it up and you won’t be disappointed. The lyrics, “ROOOOLLYY-POLY, daddy’s little fatty” can be found on certain Roly-Poly merch and will be stuck in your head for weeks on end.)
Even with hidden Lego figurines placed around the shop, Taylor wanted to keep a casual coffee shop feel, while still taking the “coffee side of it and people just as seriously.” Taylor now has two locations in Bozeman: the original location on Broadway Ave, and the newer location on Main St.
All in the back of the garage, Taylor screenprints his own merchandise and roasts his coffee, while also selling his beans in most local grocery stores.
Skimping on ecological waste, but not on bean quality, Taylor decided to package his beans in cans rather than bags, to both provide a unique experience, and eliminate waste.
“We were just kind of like, what about cans? The nice part about a can is it’s not just an interesting experience, but it’s recyclable, way more recyclable than a coffee bag. It keeps the coffee fresher than a coffee bag, and it’s a nice experience. Yeah, you open them, you get a real fresh hit of all the coffee smells.”
Taylor explained that to him, the “best cup of coffee” means making “contemporary specialty coffee, high quality beans. A lot of that’s on the sourcing side of things, just making sure that we’re not cutting corners...just getting really nice coffee, straight from the farms, and then when we get them here, we treat them with respect and pay attention to little details.”
Despite Roly-Poly’s growing popularity, Taylor can always be found with his dog, Arrow, greeting everyone that walks in, cheerfully chatting with customers over a cup of coffee, asking them how they’re doing, and expanding the Bozeman community. So, if you’re in a shitty mood and in need of a cup of coffee, don’t go to Roly-Poly coffee, or you’ll quickly become a regular, an impromptu Marty Robbins fan, and steal my seat.