Mobile bar rolls up to KC-area events with beer, wine, cocktails, kid-friendly slushies

After 22 years as a hairstylist in Topeka, Tameka Lopez was ready for a change.

“I always said if I wasn’t a stylist, I would be a bartender. I feel like they coincide with one another,” she said.

Lopez and her family had relocated to Kansas City, Kansas, in 2020 and in early 2022, her husband, Carlos Lopez, suggested that she open a mobile bar, that it would be fun to move around the city at different events.

After posting a request on their neighborhood Facebook page that they wanted to buy a trailer, they found a vintage two-horse trailer within a five minute walk. They spent seven months turning it into a bar.

The Thirsty Chariot offers alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages from the bar on wheels that she hooks on the back of her GMC Sierra.

She booked her first event before finishing the renovation — an Oktoberfest neighborhood festival in Olathe. Then she did an open house for a Shawnee gym and then a new ice skating rink in Topeka.

“The fun part is meeting different people and we become part of their event, part of their memories,” she said. “Just like I created relationships with my styling clients — it’s almost like family — I want to do the same with my bartending clients,” she said. “So they can feel comfortable with me and use my services over and over for any event they may have.”

She also took a bartending course in October to help her oversee operations.

Lopez shut down the trailer for the winter but is now booking for spring and summer events such as weddings and wedding showers, corporate events, birthdays, neighborhood parties and children’s parties.

She provides the bartender, drink staff and supplies including plasticware, napkins, ice, soda, mixers and garnishes. She also will decorate the trailer to match the event, such as the wedding colors. Selfies with the truck are popular.

Customers can pick from the platinum, silver or gold packages. For example, the platinum package is for up to 150 guests who will get a choice of beer, wine, signature drinks and access to the open bar with vodka, tequila, rum, whiskey, bourbon, cognac, mixers, soda, juices and water.

Customers also can customize their packages, perhaps selecting non-alcoholic frozen daiquiris or lemonade for church events or slushies for children’s parties. Lopez also caters smaller events inside without the trailer.