By Gabbie Burton
Contributing Writer

A new coffee phenomenon has taken Oxford’s “it girls” by storm. Posted on the Instagram stories of loyal friends and fans, a coffee concoction with a pink sticker reading “Early Girly Club” and a cheeky, double entendre latte name has drawn the attention and curiosity of local coffee lovers. With no physical storefront but a recognizable product and customer base, Early Girly Club has grown larger and faster than its creators could have imagined.

The idea for Early Girly Cub came from Alejandra Marquez after a trip to Mexico with family where she tried a banana syrup matcha and thought the syrup would taste good in a coffee. When Marquez came back from Mexico, she started making her own banana syrup from scratch and using it in lattes, naming it the BBL, banana bread latte. Marquez started giving out coffees to coworkers and friends including her friend from high school, Kelly Green – a former coffee hater. 

“I just don't like anything but the BBL, it tastes like a whole different coffee,” Green said. 

After Marquez, 28, and Green, 30,  took a trip to Texas this past October where they tested and tried as many coffee shops as possible, the pair came home and knew they had to start expanding Marquez’s coffees to a larger audience. They started their instagram account on Halloween and have since reached over 600 followers.

“Everyone would see us posting and they wanted to try it so that's when [Marquez] came up with Early Girly Club,” Green said. 

Marquez, Green and their friend Gina McCutcheon, 31, who makes homemade sourdoughs through her Instagram @simply.sourdoughs to sell alongside Early Girly Club coffee, are all Oxford High School graduates and from the same friend group. They all explained how the name has multiple meanings to them and their friends. 

“Early Girly can mean so much to everyone and I kind of just added the club part to it just because I thought it would bring community together and that's basically what we've been doing, is just like a girlhood,” Marquez explained. 

Without a storefront, Early Girly Club relies on scheduled drops at their houses or their gym for people to come and buy their favorite drinks. Their first drop occurred on Black Friday and they’ve hosted two more since then. The trio explained how the strong group of women around them has supported them through every drop and been welcoming to new customers joining the community. 

“We did coffee drops at my house and I think that's where the big girlhood started too,” Green said. “We would do them early in the morning and people would pick up orders but all the friend group would come over and everyone was involved and everyone was helping and it was more of a hangout for the girls.”

In addition to their emphasis on girlhood and friendship, Marquez, Green and McCutcheon want Early Girly Club to have a focus on health and wellness as well.

“We're all very early girls,” Green added. “We get up, we gym, we've always been into the wellness thing and that's also the other point of the Early Girly Club.”

Early Girly Club hosted a Valentine’s Day drop at Morpht Fitness in West Grove which combined their love for the gym with their coffee and community. McCutcheon emphasized the gut health benefits of sourdough and the quality ingredients she uses, as well as Marquez who explained how their drinks use organic milk, including a signature walnut milk in the BBL, and homemade syrups without artificial flavors or preservatives in order to further prioritize health. 

While not necessarily for health benefits, Early Girly Club also uses “nugget” ice which they buy in bags from the Parkesburg Chick-fil-A as they said it is the “perfect ice” for their lattes. They also use reusable heart-shaped straws in their drinks and have a sticker with their logo on every cup, further showing the effort and care they put into creating a unique and aesthetically pleasing product. 

“I will say I take so much pride in it,” Marquez said. “I'm not saying my coffee is the best, but I will say that you can definitely tell the difference between the syrups that we make and then the ones that you get at Starbucks or Dunkin.”

Early Girly Club added two new flavors for their March 28 drop including a fresa latte and a berry muffin latte and have plans to continue expanding their menu and reach. They shared that the ultimate goal for Early Girly Club would be a wellness studio where they could combine their passions and careers through workout classes, mental health resources and, of course, coffee. 

For now, their wellness studio dream remains further down the line as the trio continue to focus on their separate careers, Marquez as a nurse, Green as a social worker and McCutcheon as a teacher. Balancing their full-time jobs with a blossoming business isn't easy, but the friends always emphasize just how much fun they are having doing it. 

“We know this can be successful,” Green said. “It's just getting to the point of when it's the right time for us to make the next move but for now we're just really having fun with it as a hobby.”

In addition to their scheduled drops, Early Girly Club can also be booked to work events and all three women can make coffee orders throughout the week when available for those who direct message them on Instagram. 

While the past five months have been a whirlwind of unexpected success in their coffee endeavor, the focus for the three women and their goals for Early Girl Club lie far beyond just coffee.

“We really want everyone to be able to be involved,” Green said. “That's the biggest part of Early Girly, that we love girlhood and we love empowering other women.”