Purpose This study aims to explore the lived experience of vendors as they enact street vending practice that emerges as transformative entrepreneurship and service where they live and work. Design/methodology/approach This research qualitatively explores street vending in a multi-cultural, multi-local study to understand how these businesses operate to positively impact individual, collective and societal well-being. Findings This research reveals street vending is a creative, transformative entrepreneurial activity that improves individual and collective well-being. The research exposes multiple forms of habitual and transformative value delivered by vendors, resulting in improved eudaimonic and hedonic well-being that ripples out from vendors to families, communities and society. Research limitations/implications A framework of street vending practice is provided to guide service designers and policymakers as they seek to support street vendors as they move from informal to formal and from survival to growth business modes. Originality/value This research extends existing conceptualizations of transformative entrepreneurship beyond prior focus on economic transformation and prior limitations of transformative entrepreneurship to business in growth modes.