Introducing BLK Coffee

As silly as it sounds, the decision to open my own coffee shop more or less made itself. I couldn't think of anything else to do. When I left my last job at the end of 2014, I did so abruptly, amid what could charitably be described as bad circumstances. I'll save the gory details for my memoirs (if, by the time I decide to write them, the whole experience hasn't become as hazy and fragmented as a half-remembered dream) but it was pretty awful, and it took a while to recover. At that point, I wasn't thinking about career progression, or about employment at all for that matter. I was a bit of a mess and needed time to put myself back together.

In my heart of hearts, I think I knew I wanted to stay in coffee, and so I launched Black Coffee and Other Stories as a way to keep myself in the loop whilst technically jobless. I wrote about subjects such as seasonality and traceability, and covered events such as La Marzocco's Out of the Box and various UKBC heats. This was an invaluable way to keep myself engaged with the wider coffee community, and it helped me to regain confidence in my abilities. Things were very much on the up. There was just the small matter of what to do next.

In early 2015, there were really only two speciality coffee shops in Newcastle - the one I had just left, and Flat Caps Coffee, which was then still a small operation occupying the basement of a holistic shop. (Today, Flat Caps Coffee, led by former banker-turned-UKBC veteran Joe Meagher, is something of a mini empire with three locations in Newcastle city centre, including the original basement outpost.) There wasn't anywhere to make a lateral move to, let alone progress to. For a while I thought I might move to London; I know a number of people who have done so and had real success, and I had a few irons in the fire as regards jobs down there. But living in London on a barista wage is tough, too tough for the likes of me at least, and I already had a failed attempt at moving to Berlin under my belt. Was leaving really the answer?

The thought of opening my own coffee shop in Newcastle had crossed my mind only very briefly. If memory serves, the first time I mentioned it was to my soon-to-be former employer, but I'm not sure how seriously it was taken, or how seriously I meant it, even. However, once I had put it out there, the idea seemed to gain legitimacy. I started to think I could pull it off, and people even began encouraging me to do it! (In fact, there are a handful of people who deserve as much credit for bringing BLK Coffee about as I do - were it not for their vote of confidence, I definitely wouldn't have felt up to it.)

At this point, I was spending a lot of time in Heaton, an area around two to three miles outside of Newcastle proper where my father grew up and my grandmother spent the majority of her life. My grandmother was not so well at the time, and I was drafted in to look after her when my father, usually the carer, was away. On the occasions that I ventured out of her house and onto Chillingham Road, the main nearby shopping street, I struggled to find a good cup of coffee. There were plenty of cafés and coffee shops, as well as establishments such as Greggs and Subway where coffee is served as an afterthought to steak bakes and six-inch subs, but I couldn't see where you would go specifically for the coffee. There was a gap to be filled.

But, as with many things related to BLK Coffee, I can't take all the credit for realising this. That Heaton was lacking a serious speciality coffee shop was hardly a revelation; as far back as 2012, a friend of mine was getting ready to open one on the corner of Chillingham Road and Simonside Terrace, but the project fell through at the last minute. (For a long time, when you looked inside, you could see evidence of all the work that had already gone into it: new electrics, new plumbing, lots and lots of timber. I do not doubt that it would have been brilliant.) Furthermore, I knew of several local "coffee people" who had their eye on the unit, too - it was time for them to expand, and apparently Heaton was the place to do it. Yet, despite being so highly sought after, the unit was still empty. I became curious.

As I spent more and more time in Heaton, I spent more and more time walking past - and staring into - the empty unit. I started to see seating, menus, lights. I started to wonder what the shop front might look like were it not painted fire engine red. I started to imagine names, logos, colour schemes. As the days passed, any other plans I'd had for what to do with myself became steadily less real. I hadn't really wanted to open a coffee shop, but I wanted to open this one, on this corner. I was obsessed. I ran the idea past my father, the long-suffering Robin Bell, and we made an appointment to view the full unit the morning of Wednesday February 25th, 2015.

Once inside, my first impression of the unit was that it was freezing cold, but I suppose this is what happens when a place is left empty for three years. It was also in poorer repair than I had expected, with comedy floorboards that stuck up like a see-saw if you didn't tread carefully, and random piles of rotten wood spread throughout. But it was easy to see the unit's potential. Even my father, who had reservations about there being a lack of space, seemed to be heartened by the viewing - especially when we went through to the back, where a veritable rabbit warren of rooms revealed itself. If we were serious, the letting agent said, we were to submit a proposal to the landlord ASAP. 

I went away and composed one in a fury. The letting agent sent it. The landlord liked it. The wheels were very much in motion. I didn't feel especially ready, but perhaps that's why I went with it. There's an advantage to be had in not having any expectations.

This piece was originally published on blkcoffee.co.uk in 2017.