Photo: Image courtesy of Flipside.

The Flipside formula appears to involve quality coffee, homemade-style comfort food, very early mornings, a supportive family, plenty of determination and, every once in a while, using milk for something other than the coffee.

 

By John Riddle, Contributing Journalist, Delaware LIVE

Some business ideas begin with a detailed plan, a group of investors and months of market research.

Others begin with a guy who loves coffee, knows the restaurant business and suddenly realizes Delaware could use a really good biscuit.

For Gregory Safian, owner of Flipside Coffee and Biscuits in Middletown, the road to entrepreneurship was more than two decades in the making.

Safian has spent more than 23 years in the restaurant industry, and almost from the beginning, he imagined someday owning a food business of his own. Long before Flipside served its first customer, he would create mock menus for restaurants and food trucks that existed only in his imagination.

“I’ve spent over 23 years in the restaurant industry and always dreamt of owning my own food establishment since the early days of my career,” Safian said. “I would fantasize about it and write mock menus for restaurants or food trucks I wouldn’t have been able to open then.”

His original vision was a bar and restaurant, but life has a way of rewriting even the best imaginary menu.

Safian became increasingly interested in coffee about 15 years ago. Starting a family also changed his priorities, and eventually the dream evolved from a traditional restaurant into something built around coffee.

He and his wife were actually preparing to open a café before COVID-19 arrived. They had also recently welcomed their son, and ultimately decided the timing was not right.

Then came 2025.

“I got the itch again in early 2025 and went on a warpath to turn the dream into a reality,” Safian said.

This time, coffee would unquestionably be at the center of the business. But Safian knew coffee alone was not enough. Flipside needed something distinctive to accompany it.

The answer had actually been baking in his kitchen for years.

During the pandemic, Safian experimented with pastries, breads, pizza dough, bagels and biscuits. As he and his wife brainstormed what their future coffee business could serve, one particular item kept rising to the top.

Biscuits.

“We had to have a thing,” Safian said. “Then it hit me. Biscuits! Delaware doesn’t really have any biscuit restaurants and that’s how the concept was born.”

From Dream to Trailer

The mobile food business offers entrepreneurs an alternative to immediately taking on the expense and complexity of a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant. But operating from a trailer hardly means the work is easy.

That was something Safian quickly discovered.

The biggest hurdle was money. He and his wife scraped together what they could to launch the business, and Safian spent much of the summer of 2025 outfitting the trailer himself.

Before work. After work. On weekends.

Securing a commissary kitchen created another headache when an arrangement they thought was finalized fell through. Equipment compliance issues caused additional delays.

Still, the timetable was impressive. Safian purchased the trailer in April 2025. By August, Flipside Coffee and Biscuits was open for business.

The long hours required to get Flipside started have not disappeared now that the business is operating.

A typical day begins at precisely 5:27 a.m.

“That’s the absolute latest I can sleep until,” Safian joked.

Everything needs to be loaded by 5:55. Setup takes about 30 minutes, followed by roughly four and a half hours of serving customers. Then comes about an hour and a half breaking everything down, followed by unloading, washing dishes, cleaning and restocking for the next day.

Flipside operates Tuesday through Saturday. Sunday is Safian’s only complete day off. On Monday, it starts all over again with inventory, stocking and preparation for the coming week.

Initially, Safian and his wife handled virtually everything themselves, including baking, cooking and operating the trailer. They have since brought in some behind-the-scenes help, giving the couple a little breathing room.

Coffee First, But Don’t Forget the Biscuits

While biscuits helped give Flipside its identity, Safian remains serious about the first half of the company’s name.

Coffee.

Flipside focuses on sourcing fresh, quality coffee beans and using proper techniques when preparing espresso drinks. The food receives similar attention. The business uses its own biscuit recipe, and eggs are freshly cracked rather than relying on shortcuts.

“Our typical customer is someone who can appreciate good coffee and good comfort food,” Safian said. “I think our customers can tell the difference.”

Located at 100 N. Bayberry Parkway in Middletown, Flipside sits within reach of Routes 1, 301 and 13, helping create an eclectic customer base that includes commuters, nearby residents, families and travelers passing through the area.

Safian said the clientele crosses generations and backgrounds.

“Coffee is universal,” he said.

When Winter Throws You a Curve

Opening a mobile food operation also means dealing with something traditional restaurants rarely have to worry about inside their dining rooms: Mother Nature.

Flipside’s first winter provided a crash course.

Extreme cold created problems starting the generator, sometimes delaying opening. Water lines froze. Then there was the day a propane heater caught fire inside the trailer.

Safian reached for the closest thing available to put out the flames.

Milk.

The winter weather indirectly led to something much more positive.

When the parking lot at Flipside’s former location was not plowed and froze over, Safian needed somewhere else to set up. Flipside had already been visiting the North Bayberry community during the first week of each month, and residents had embraced the business.

What began as an emergency relocation eventually became home.

“The community really embraced us, so we ultimately decided to move there full time,” Safian said. “We couldn’t be more grateful for their support.”

What’s on the Flipside?

Safian is already thinking about what comes next.

Plans are underway to add a second mobile coffee unit. The existing operation will continue serving customers at its regular Middletown location, while the additional vehicle would give Flipside the flexibility to participate in more events and serve customers away from its home base.

And the dream that began more than 23 years ago is still evolving.

Within five years, Safian hopes Flipside will make the leap from mobile operation to a brick-and-mortar location.

The restaurant business remains a challenging place to build a dream. The National Restaurant Association projects restaurant and foodservice sales will reach $1.55 trillion nationwide in 2026, but operators continue to face persistent cost pressures and uneven customer traffic.

For small independent businesses, success often comes down to finding a concept customers remember, offering something they cannot easily find elsewhere and building relationships with the surrounding community.

For Flipside, that formula appears to involve quality coffee, homemade-style comfort food, very early mornings, a supportive family, plenty of determination and, every once in a while, using milk for something other than the coffee.

And it all started with one simple realization.

Delaware needed biscuits.

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