Meet Stefania & Richard Brown – Antonescu

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stefania & Richard Brown – Antonescu a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Stefania & Richard, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Both of us are pretty creative individuals and can make something out of pretty much nothing, to be honest. We co-create and support each other’s ideas. We listen deeply and feed off each other’s creative passion.

We simply look for inspiration in our everyday surroundings, identify if there is a need for or a lack of something. And we always make a point to bring novelty into our space.

In the worlds of William Arthur Ward: “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Our initial inspiration came from a trip to Puerto Rico, where we saw a street vendor selling fresh sugarcane juice! Of course we tried it and instantly fell in love. There is nothing like it and the unique flavor can only be described as “liquid sunshine”

We started off small, in the Spring of 2023, with a bicycle cart and a manual sugarcane press, and grew into our larger display, a vintage school bus… that is definitely the party at every event we attend!

We now work on bringing that taste of the tropics to each of our events. We enjoy the reaction and surprise from people, especially when they learn that sugarcane juice, in its raw form is actually good for you!
We make a variety of drinks with it, ranging from our famous Sugarcane Lavender Lemonade to boogie non-alcoholic Pina Coladas & Mojitos!

Every single drink that we create is made from scratch, with all-natural ingredients. People love watching the sugarcane being squeezed fresh and enjoy the good vibes with the music we play.

It’s worth noting that we also specialize in Zero Proof Cocktails – using premium NA Spirits together with fresh and unique ingredients, our goal is to offer people a high-quality and fun alternative to drinking!

We now have the luxury of spending a lot of time together, as both a married couple, and as business partners, while immersing ourselves in the community.

Sugarcane Galore also helped Stef develop a sense of belonging, community and purpose after just moving here to the U.S. from Europe.

We operate seasonally (April through October) at public events in Metro Detroit area, ranging from Art Fairs and Music Festivals to Farmers Markets and Pop-ups. We also cater to private events, such as weddings, graduations and corporate parties year-round.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Unique vision, determination & hard work.

If you can dream it, you can build it. You’ll get discouraged, you’ll get tired and you will get frustrated. No matter what, see it through the end.
The result will always reflect the energy and the effort that you channeled into your project, just remember that.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

First of all, you should always go all in on any of your ideas and dreams, exploit your strenghts, develop your weaknesses, in order to become well-rounded. If you half-way start something, you’ll always half-way finish it.

For example, Sugarcane Galore is a completely different venture from everything else that we do (or have done) in our daily lives. We had to learn and master the intricacies of opening and running a food truck business successfully. Every single detail, ranging from budgeting, to booking events & adhering to healh department requirements. It was all a big unknown in the very beginning!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sugarcane.galore/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SugarcaneGalore