Stroll Coffee, owned by Frederick and Ty Watson, serves coffees and teas at Dig It Gardens in Phoenix.
Sara Crocker
Step into the midtown oasis of Dig It Gardens, and you’ll find towering cacti, glossy green-leafed houseplants and some of the most unique coffee and tea drinks in the Valley.
Stroll Coffee, a mobile coffee cart founded by Ty and Frederick Watson in December, has taken up permanent residence at the Phoenix plant nursery. There, the duo crafts unique sips by employing bar techniques.
“I like to call it fourth wave coffee, where it’s just very experimental,” Frederick says of Stroll.
Coffee, much like Taylor Swift, has eras. The caffeine-obsessed refer to those transformative times as waves, reflecting an evolution from colonial trade that spread coffee globally, to the ubiquity of brewing coffee at home and the rise of specialty cafes. Most trendy, popular Valley cafes serve third-wave coffee. Stroll is taking its drinks a step further.
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While you can surely order a cortado or latte from Stroll, most patrons line up for the unique matcha and coffee specials. Currently, the Watsons fall menu features a sparkling iced matcha with spiced jamaica, an autumnal riff on cafe de olla and a clarified coffee jacked with apple cider, miso caramel and topped with a dollop of houjicha cold foam.
“We just wanted something that was leisurely and calm and didn’t take itself too seriously,” Ty says. “We’re allowed to be fun, we’re allowed to experiment.”
Stroll Coffee uses bar techniques, including clarification, to make unique sips.
A communal coffee cart run by ‘mad scientists’
The Watsons honed their skills while working at other specialty coffee companies, including Cartel and Provision. Ty’s roles included marketing and social media. Frederick also worked at Valley restaurants and bars, including the acclaimed Century Grand. He was in the midst of two stages, a kind of restaurant internship to learn new skills, when he texted Ty, “Let’s start our own thing.”
Over her lunch break, Ty started lining up their business paperwork and bought a web domain.
But the timing to start their coffee cart, the Watsons soon found, couldn’t have been worse. A month into their business, Ty’s father had a stroke following a surgery. She spent time commuting between Phoenix and Tucson to care for her father while Frederick worked two jobs. Ty found tasks, like building out the cart, to be grounding.
“I could come home and work on plumbing as a nice escape,” Ty recalls. “I just felt like we could keep on going.”
The Watsons launched their cart from their central Phoenix home, inviting people to walk up to their carport for a coffee. Since then, they’ve popped up at local breweries, restaurants and shops before taking up residence at Dig It, Thursday to Sunday.
The Watsons strive to make nearly everything in-house. That includes their syrups and the base for their chai, which has warm notes of cinnamon and a smart, Southwestern tinge of ancho chile.
“It’s got this nice depth and smokiness to it that brings out the charm of the spices,” Frederick says.
It’s all a laborious process, none more so than the seasonal clarified coffee drinks that Stroll unveiled over the summer. These are made employing the same “milk-washing” technique that bars use to round out the hard edges of a spirit, revealing more complex flavors and a silky texture. Frederick wondered, why not try the technique with coffee?
Stroll’s first clarified coffee, called Clear the Tropics, was inspired by Dole Whip. The drink had a golden hue and was layered with the creaminess of coconut and the sweetness of pineapple. It was fresh, bright and light, feeling more like a complex mai tai you’d sip on vacation.
“These techniques that are used in cocktails, you can bring them over to coffee and it’s not really a scary thing,” Frederick says.
Stroll’s sips are made with beans and cold brew from Moxie Coffee Co. and teas from Rishi Tea & Botanicals. Seasonal flavors, local ingredients and personal nostalgia all play a part in how the Watsons craft the Stroll menu. They also make sure every drink stands out visually.
“It’s form and function, like it is design,” Ty says.
Frederick hopes to lean further into their work at “mad scientists,” using bar techniques for experimental brews, such as fat-washed coffee or clarified tea.
During their first year, the specials were safer, Ty says, noting that “now we’re learning how far we can take (the menu).”
While Stroll plants roots at Dig It, the Watsons are also working to add a second mobile cart in 2026. That will allow them to continue popping up around town and book events. For right now, they’re not in a rush.
“There’s also so much downfall that comes from fast scaling, like move fast and break things,” Ty says. “Maybe we don’t have to do that. Maybe we can be OK growing slowly.”
Stroll Coffee
3015 N. 16th St.