Q2030’s Business Spotlight features local business owners from our multi-cultural business directory. We’re committed to telling their stories as we work to showcase and amplify those doing the hard work of building a better community for all.
Cynthia Flores loves to travel, but her happy place is home in the Quad Cities. Her new business venture combines the best of both – a mobile bar called The Wandering Crowd. Parked along Moline’s River Drive, the converted horse trailer attracted attention from everyone who passed by on a sunny March afternoon.
“I love everything about her,” Cynthia said about her trailer that she affectionately calls ‘Peregrina’. “I feel like she’s very Midwest. She’s perfect for what I am trying to create.”
Peregrina is the Spanish word for “wanderer”. But Cynthia is driven in only one direction – growth for her business and success for her three daughters, aged 11, 13 and 15. When she’s not working her full-time corporate job, Cynthia is on the sidelines for her daughter’s softball and soccer games. Now she’s aiming even higher as an entrepreneur.
“I really want to pour my whole heart into this,” she explained. “I see so much potential, and I want it to become a full time job.”
Cynthia started in July 2022 by buying the trailer from a business owner in Alabama, a woman who also has three daughters and ran it as a mobile bar.
“She had many offers, but she decided to choose me,” Cynthia said.
As a dry-hire bar, the Wandering Crowd specializes in creating unique, personalized bar experiences. Cynthia plans the menu and provides the shopping list. The client provides any alcohol products, and Cynthia mixes up the drinks. Her goal is to create a worry-free bar experience for all kinds of special events. After years of wo
rking second jobs in the service industry, she’s excited to have her own business and all the responsibility that comes with it.
“There’s a lot at stake,” she said. “It’s personal to me, and I want to live up to the expectations I set for myself.”
Cynthia’s ultimate goal is to expand the Wandering Crowd to multiple trailers, setting up at public and private events around the Quad Cities. She’s proud to be a small part of the growth of this region and to lead by example for her daughters.
“They’re very supportive and motivating to me,” she said. “I want to show them there are no limits to what they can do.”