Most coffee carts buy equipment and start taking bookings.
Dyllan and Roy Allen spent three years getting the coffee right first. This is the story of why that matters.
Dyllan, Roy, and Sage (the dog) in front of the Sage's Playground mobile coffee cart in St. Petersburg, FL
This started with a dog park in Atlanta
In the summer of 2019, Dyllan Allen was a junior at Florida State University with a marketing degree, no clear direction, and a deep love of dogs and coffee. On a family road trip, her dad Roy found a coffee shop in Atlanta that was also a dog park. Dyllan walked in and something clicked. She went back to Tallahassee with an idea: a dog-friendly coffee shop in St. Petersburg. She had no business experience, no roadmap, and no idea how hard it would actually be. She had her dad, and she had a vision, and that turned out to be enough.
Three years of obsessive research
Between 2020 and 2023, Dyllan and Roy did something most coffee businesses skip entirely. They traveled. They visited coffee shops across Florida and beyond, trying roaster after roaster, looking for one thing: coffee that tasted different from everything else being served in Tampa Bay.
They kept ending up back at Qreate in Orlando. Something about the way those drinks tasted just hit differently. They tracked down the roaster, Glen Turchin of Otus Coffee out of Winter Garden, FL, and never looked back. Otus has been their roaster ever since.
That obsession with how the coffee actually tastes is why guests at every Sage's Playground event say the same thing: you can actually taste the espresso. The flavor is there without drowning it in milk. That is not an accident. That is three years of research made into a cup.
The cart came first
In August 2023, Dyllan and Roy signed a lease on a space in downtown St. Petersburg with plans to open a dog-friendly cafe. While construction was underway, Roy, true to his 30+ years in the restaurant industry, solved the problem the way he always does: practically. They opened a coffee cart out front to generate revenue and get their name out in the community.
It worked. St. Pete showed up. The reviews came in. The regulars came back. When the brick-and-mortar plans stalled, Dyllan and Roy made a clear-eyed decision: double down on what was actually working. They stepped back from the cafe plans and focused entirely on growing the cart.
From pop-ups to catering
From 2024 into 2025, Sage's Playground built its presence through pop-ups and community events across St. Pete and Tampa. Roy took the cart into a permanent home at Eat Art Love on 22nd Street South in St. Pete, a residency that continues today, Wednesday through Sunday.
Meanwhile Dyllan was watching something: coffee carts were exploding across Tampa Bay and across the country. And she started asking a different question. Not how do we do more pop-ups, but what are the highest-value ways to deploy what we have built?
The answer was catering. Private events. Corporate bookings. Weddings. Occasions where a family-run operation with a genuine hospitality background and legitimately great coffee could command the room and the booking.
In January 2026, Sage's Playground made it official: paid catering events only. A focused, premium operation serving Tampa Bay's corporate clients, wedding couples, schools, and brands. Since 2025, they have been the proud coffee catering partner of the Tampa Bay Rays.
The people behind the cart.
Dyllan Allen runs the catering operation: client relationships, event execution, and the day-to-day of getting the cart to your venue and making sure everything runs perfectly. She is the one you will hear from when you fill out the quote form. FSU marketing grad, lifelong dog lover, and the reason this business exists.
Roy Allen brings 30+ years of restaurant and hospitality experience to every event. He runs the permanent coffee counter at Eat Art Love and is the reason the hospitality standard feels different from a typical vendor. He taught Dyllan how to move through a room, read a guest, and make every person feel taken care of. That does not come from a barista course.
Why we are called Sage's Playground.
Sage's Playground is named after Dyllan's Australian Cattle Dog, Sage, her soul dog of 14 years. In 2023, Sage was diagnosed with cancer. It was the same year the business was born, and naming it after her was never a question. Sage deserved to live on in something bigger than herself.
Every event Sage's Playground serves, every cup that gets handed to a guest, every client who books, that is her legacy. The name is not just branding. It is a promise that she will never be forgotten.
$750
Starting rate per event
3 yrs
Spent perfecting the coffee
Otus
Our specialty roaster
Rays
Official coffee partner