BUSINESS
Maria (left) and Shaun Cobb
Living the dream Residents have dream jobs in age of AI
GOURMET FOOD TRUCK Cobber’s Cravings It’s the food truck with an unusual fusion of tastes. Wife Maria Cobb is from Jalisco, Mexico. Husband Shaun is from Buffalo, N.Y. Together, the couple has decades of experience in the food service industry, but Maria explained they both grew tired of working for other people. Their first year in the truck was rough, without air conditioning inside the stuffy steel kitchen trailer. A fryer made it even more unbearable. This year, they installed A/C. Their food trailer can be found
ARTISANAL BAKERY Small Kine Bakeshop
BY JEFF CHEW
This micro bakery sells elegant, artful pastries, which owner and head baker Kehau Griego is quick to call her dream job — aside from raising her five children. She, her husband and their kids moved to Maricopa in 2017, and the sweet, home-based business came to fruition when Griego had the time to spare. Her family hails from Hawai’i and her shop’s name is derived from Hawaiian Pidgin language. “I’m the oldest of four kids, so I’ve always been a hostess, a caretaker and baking just came naturally to me,” she said. “It wasn’t always a dream job for me, but in the past couple years I developed a real strong passion for it.” That passion comes in handy when she bakes three or more cakes a week for special events like high school prom. Recently, she filled an order for 40 dozen cake pops and 21 dozen chocolate dip treats. She gets administrative help from her sister-in-law and sister, who also has a bakery business in Maricopa. Her son helps around the shop.
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RTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AMAZON AND BIG-BOX STORES. It’s competition enough to drive your average small, local business out of Maricopa. But there are still “AI-proof” small businesses that cannot
be pirated by the big names. That’s according to a February survey of 3,000 Arizona employees by web experts at HostingAdvice in Gainesville, Fla., ranking Arizonans’ dream jobs in the age of AI. “The surge of AI presents as much an opportunity as it does a challenge,” Christina Lewis, technical writer for HostingAdvice, said in an email to InMaricopa . “Our survey has revealed that the entrepreneurial spirit remains undeterred, eager to find new paths that AI won’t tread. These dream businesses are not just ventures, they are beacons of human ingenuity and connection.” Maricopa’s business landscape features some of the state’s top ventures, per that survey. Here’s a sampling of the city’s niche businesses with highly local flair flavored by family and friends.
Tuesday through Friday at the Exceptional Hospital parking lot. The Cobbs also set up shop at Pacana Park near Leading Edge charter school, serving Little League families. They in turn donate back to the young baseballers. The mobile restaurant serves breakfast and lunch primarily from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., but it also serves occasional dinner hours.
Maria said she loves meeting and serving new people at Cobber’s Cravings. “We have kids, so we’re very family oriented,” she said. The couple recently partnered with DoorDash and will use Street Food Finder to deliver.
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Survey
ARIZONANS’ DREAM JOB IN THE AGE OF AI
Source: HostingAdvice
Artisanal Bakery
Specialty coffee shop
Art gallery & studio space
Boutique bookstore
Pet boutique
Health & wellness retreat
Gourmet food truck
PET BOUTIQUE Earthwise Pet Maricopa This unique pet store on North John Wayne Parkway sells pet food so specialized, in some cases it looks like a human could eat it. Besides OC Raw foods for dogs, the store bakes cookies and even birthday cakes for the fur babies. Owner Kandice Pyper employs five, including three groomers. Pyper shared the secret to her dream job’s success: making a niche so specialized that even big dogs in the big boxes can’t paw it. “I listen to what the community is asking for,
SPECIALTY COFFEE SHOP Monsoon Coffee Co.
and then I do those things,” Pyper said. “That’s what we’re here for — to listen instead of telling you what you want.” The Maricopa store was the first Earthwise location in Arizona, she said. Other Earthwise stores can be found in Florida and California. She came to Maricopa from Ottawa, Ontario, chiefly to start the business. When she moved from Canada, the government required she create at least five jobs for Americans. That was part of an E-2 visa, which allows immigrants from some countries to live in the U.S. if they invest in American business. Pyper’s store also sells cat food and even chow for the guinea pig, plus treats and pet CBD.
Dave (left) and Gunnar Varlennich
Monsoon Coffee Co.’s son and dad duo have long pounded out the coffee drinks inside the Maricopa Community Center and at business parking lot off Smith- Enke Road near Porter Road. While owner Gunnar Verlennich acknowledges Monsoon Coffee Co. is his dream job, dad Dave is chief barista. Together, they started the mobile business shortly after Dave’s wife and Gunnar’s mother died of cancer in 2019. “We did this because there was no place to open a physical location at the time five years ago and we decided to start like this to build a suitable customer base,” Dave said. The location was chosen because of its proximity to traffic and the constant rush of morning coffee lovers, Dave said.
Kandice Pyper behind a display case of dog cookies.
InMaricopa.com | May 2024
May 2024 | InMaricopa.com
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