The leading information and business resource for the UK's cafè bar market

It’s funny how long certain processes can take when negotiating about new property, and then all of a sudden – it’s yours and things seem to be happening way too fast. When working out the terms of our new lease for Artisan’s sister shop in Stamford Brook, the legal side of things seemed to drag… [Read more]

When we thought about setting up Artisan’s sister shop, the very first thing we did was ask ourselves can we afford it? As we were doing this a second time around, we had the advantage of a lot more information about how much it costs to set up a coffee shop. With the help of… [Read more]

It was mid-2012 and we were loving everything about Artisan in Putney – we loved the coffees that we were pulling, the vibe, the buzz, the team was a very happy one and it was summer time! Our rosters were working and we completely trusted the team to run a great shop without us so… [Read more]

It was mid-2012 and we were loving everything about Artisan in Putney – we loved the coffees that we were pulling, the vibe, the buzz, the team was a very happy one and it was summer time! Our rosters were working and we completely trusted the team to run a great shop without us so… [Read more]

One of the funny things about setting up a coffee shop is that it seems everyone has an opinion on how you should or could do it. Before Artisan, we were those people – we would sit leisurely sipping the day away in great places in Perth, Western Australia or East London thinking if this… [Read more]

This month we wanted to bullet point broad pros and cons of setting up an independent coffee shop, not necessarily from a financial point of view but more from how we are personally finding the experience. Pro It’s nice to think that we can make decisions anytime we like and can tweak and grow Artisan… [Read more]

People often think that rent, business rates and VAT are the key expenses for a small coffee shop and whilst they are important and expensive, they don’t even compare to the cost of your staff. Our plan, which does differ from many of you who are thinking of establishing a coffee shop, was for Artisan… [Read more]

So we had got off to a good start and things seemed to be going well at Artisan, however summer time was just around the corner. Everyone had always told us that this was a tough time for coffee shops as people headed to the parks and the pubs, leaving empty and sad looking coffee… [Read more]

In this blog, we look back over the last 6 months of running Artisan and try to pull out some useful bits of information for all of you who are keen to go down the independent coffee shop route. The first thing that springs to mind is that we think we made our lives easier… [Read more]

As the days turned into weeks and even months, we slowly but surely began building a reputation for quality coffee. However one of the challenges that we were encountering was how to manage the staff and the coffee shop as a whole. We would find it so much easier to ask each other to do… [Read more]

So there we were with our lovely coffee shop – a great property all fitted out – and we had been trading for 4 weeks, constantly ironing out the little flaws and perfecting the perfect cup. Now was the time to launch Artisan on to the coffee shop scene. I remember distinctly not wanting to… [Read more]

The first few weeks are now a bit of a blur; customers would expect us to be as efficient as a streamlined coffee shop that had been open for years. Instead they found Magda and I looking bewildered as we tried to figure out the confusing till buttons; and often we had to make up… [Read more]

With the smell of fresh paint still lingering in the air the night before we were about to launch, there we were busy writing up the coffee menu with the help of our flat mates – and nervously anticipating our very first day of trading! We believed we had everything covered – we had hired… [Read more]

The day we finally took over the lease for where Artisan stands today was a great one. Having spent nine months planning and waiting – we were in no mood to waste time when it came to the big fit out. There were practical reasons for us wanting to get going fast as well, as… [Read more]

This is the first in a series of blogs about Artisan’s first year of trading as an independent coffee shop in London. In this blog we tell you about the first steps we took to open. Firstly let us introduce ourselves; our names are Edwin and Magda and we are the owners of Artisan –… [Read more]