EVERLY—Most people who want drinks served at their wedding or birthday or debutante ball have to book a venue with a bar, but with the Black Mule Mobile Bar, the party is anywhere Courtney Engeltjes can park her trailer.
The bar-on-wheels owner said she got the idea while looking for a side gig in the pandemiconomy.
“When COVID hit, I was getting bored and everyone was getting married in their shops and their backyards because all the venues were closed,” Engeltjes said. “I thought we could just get a horse trailer and just haul it places. At first, my husband laughed at me, but I kept bugging him about it and we decided to give it a go.”
In her second year in business, Engeltjes has a handle on her niche in the event planning industry. Her busy season is the summer with half-dozen bookings this month and twice as many in the next.
“Being a stay-at-home mom, there’s not a whole lot of other ways to make an income other than a side hustle, and I thought it would be a fun one a couple months a year,” she said. “I’ll take bookings in the winter as long as the venue has a door big enough for me to pull into it. I’m not going to sit outside in the cold.”
The trailer itself fits Engeltjes’ “modern twist on the country style” with a service style resembling a food truck.
The function of the bar depends on the event. Guests can either stock the bar themselves or leave that to Engeltjes. The Black Mule also allows for prepaid open bars or per-drink purchases. Packages, customizable to specific events, are another staple of the small business.
“It really just depends on the crowd. I can stock anything they like as long as I know enough in advance so I can order it,” Engeltjes said.
The Black Mule’s sleek midnight construction used to be a junker. She bought the salvage project two winters ago and did most of the retrofitting herself.
Courtney Engeltjes works on renovating the trailer that would eventually become Black Mule Mobile Bar in January 2021. The business travels to provide bar service to a variety of events in N’West Iowa and elsewhere.
“I found this one for super cheap by Storm Lake. The floor was rotted out and the walls were bad and the doors were rotted out. I took it home, sandblasted it, welded it,” Engeltjes said.
She owns and runs the bar herself although she corrals some help from her husband, Trevor, who runs a feedlot near their house north of Everly. With the family expecting its fifth child, the Black Mule is looking to grow as well.
The Black Mule recently announced a second trailer which can be picked up, rented and returned without having to pay for bar service. Engeltjes said she hopes to have that alternative ready to go by the end of July.
One of the aspects that surprised Engeltjes is the stacks of paperwork that come with running a business on the rocks. Even the rocks are complicated.
“I had to get a food truck license because, in Iowa, ice is legally a food,” she said.
Other hoops to jump through include the different ways booze service is regulated.
If the customer stocks the Black Mule with their own drinks, no liquor license is needed. If they want an open bar supplied by Engeltjes, still no license. But a pay-per-brew event? A license is required at least 60 days before the booking.
“When I started it was like ‘This is such a great idea. How handy is this? How come nobody has ever done this?’ And then I had to start dealing with the insurance and the licensing and applying for a new liquor license for every event. Yeah, no, this is why no one has done it,” Engeltjes said.
Black Mule Mobile Bar serves an event earlier this month at Swiss Acres Weddings & Events, a venue northwest of Terril. The drinks-on-wheels business is owned by Courtney Engeltjes, originally of rural Hull, and serves N’West Iowa and beyond.
Besides filling out all the forms, the businesswoman said she enjoys working out her customers’ special days. Among her customizable options is a signature drink, which can be poured plentiful for cheap. Moscow mules are a common favorite as are other cocktails.
Other get-togethers have a more Busch Light crowd, and Engeltjes is happy to make use of her ice-food certification and add more atmosphere than any cooler.
“Generally, people are pretty excited about it,” she said. “They think it looks cool, it’s a great idea, things like that.”
She gets many of her bookings through Okoboji-area event centers that do not have a bar of their own. She also goes in the opposite direction toward her native Sioux County. Engeltjes grew up on a farm near Hull and went on to get her business degree from Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon before marrying Trevor in 2014.
The largest event she catered was last year’s Barnes Bull Riding Challenge, part of the Sioux County Youth Fair in Sioux Center, where she will return this year.
“There were 1,200 people there that time. I was busy all night,” Engeltjes said.
The Black Mule crosses state lines too with its farthest journey going to the Sandhills of west Nebraska.
Engeltjes said that she is proud of what she has been able to build in short span and is excited for what the future holds for her and her bar.
“I just like the idea of entrepreneurship,” she said. “I like being able to set my own schedule and work for myself. I don’t want to work for someone else and make someone else rich.”