What is new for Northwoods Drifter in 2026
Most 16-year-olds in Forest County are juggling geometry homework and Friday night football. Ryder Ackley is doing that too — plus running a mobile café, managing inventory, and prepping a food truck for summer.
Ravens Mobile Café isn’t your typical high school side hustle. It’s a full-blown business that’s become a fixture at Crandon farmers markets and community events, serving up crafted drinks with the kind of confidence you’d expect from someone twice Ackley’s age.
And he’s just getting started.
Ackley’s entrepreneurial itch started early. Like, toddler early.
“I started really young,” he says, crediting his older sister Madison with planting the seed. She’d run bake sales to fund school trips, and young Ryder watched the cash add up. The lesson stuck: people will pay for something good, especially when it’s made with care.
Family gatherings added fuel to the fire. Ackley spent years crafting drinks with relatives during get-togethers, learning techniques and building confidence. By the time he hit his teens, he had the skills and the drive to turn those kitchen experiments into something bigger.
Ravens Mobile Café launched last summer as a pop-up operation. Ackley hit farmers markets, community events, and anywhere folks gathered in and around Crandon.
The reception? Nothing short of overwhelming support from a town of barely 1,800 people who love backing their own.
But running a business at 16 comes with challenges most teens never think about:
“I had to learn everything from scratch,” Ackley admits. “Inventory, management, and a bunch of law, licensing and stuff like that.”
Now he operates a stand inside Schaefer’s IGA in Crandon, open weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends noon to 5 p.m. It’s steady work in a region where winter months can be brutal for seasonal businesses.
Ackley isn’t content with one location. This fall, he bought a food truck that he’s retrofitting for the summer rush.
“I plan on managing both locations, my food truck and this stand,” he says. It’s an ambitious move in a county where tourism spikes when the lakes thaw and the trails open, but flatlines come November.
The strategy makes sense for the Northwoods economy. Summer brings cabin owners, anglers, and ATV riders — exactly the crowd a mobile operation can chase. Think lakefront events, trailhead pop-ups, and festival circuits from Eagle River to Rhinelander.
“If you truly have an idea, a vision or anything that you can think of that you dedicate your mind to, and really focus on what you love doing, you can definitely do it with hard work and ambition.” — Ryder Ackley
Forest County might seem like an unlikely place to launch a teen business empire. But Ackley credits the community with his success.
“I have been pretty successful right here and it’s only because of the community that I’m in,” he says. “They have been nothing but supportive.”
That support reflects something deeper about small Northwoods towns. When you grow up where everyone knows your name, local businesses become personal. You’re not buying coffee from a stranger — you’re supporting your neighbor’s kid, the one who played Little League with your son or sat behind your daughter in chemistry.
Crandon’s history of resourcefulness runs deep, from logging camps to family resorts to the tribal enterprises that now anchor the regional economy. The Forest County Potawatomi Community drives growth through gaming and development, creating event traffic that benefits small operators like Ravens.
Ackley’s venture also taps into traditions older than the cafés themselves. Indigenous communities in this region have always practiced seasonal gathering and small-scale trade — adapting to what the land offers, moving with opportunity. A mobile café chasing farmers markets and festivals? That’s the Northwoods way, whether your ancestors were pulling wild rice or tapping sugar maples.
Summer 2025 will be the real test. Two locations, a food truck hitting the road, and a teenager still taking algebra tests.
Ackley’s advice for other young entrepreneurs cuts through the usual motivational fluff: focus on what you love, work hard, and trust your vision. No shortcuts, no excuses.
For a region that’s faced its share of economic uncertainty — from mining controversies to climate pressures on wild rice harvests — stories like this matter. They remind us that the next generation isn’t waiting around for opportunities. They’re building them, one crafted drink at a time.
Next time you’re passing through Crandon, stop by Ravens. The coffee’s good, but the hustle behind it? That’s worth supporting.
Written by
Mike has been coming up or living in the Northwoods since his childhood. He is also an avid outdoorsman, writer and supper club aficionado.
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