BeanScene Magazine

If nothing else, opening a café is a journey.

My own journey started in December last year when I sat down with the enigmatic Joe Haddad, my boss at the time, to talk about my future. We had previously discussed how I wanted to open a café, and he had put some thought into how I could achieve it with a limited budget and in a way that I would be proud of. 

He put it to me straight: he told me to move back to Hobart where I knew people who could help, and support me, and it was somewhere I could stand out.
I took his advice. About a week later, I flew to Tasmania to scope out a location. I was talking to everyone, pounding the pavement, and boldly talking to businesses about the potential to take over their locations.

Four days and a pair of sore feet later, I walked into a rundown second hand shop opposite the main hospital in Hobart, and asked if they wanted to sell their business. They seemed a little hesitant but I left my number anyway.

A week later when I was back in Melbourne, I received a phone call with an offer. After a week of negotiating the price, I flew back to Hobart with a spring in my step and an offer on the table.

My first step was to visit the council… and henceforth the spring in my step disappeared. Be warned, – those who are game to open a café must have patience. In hindsight, it would have been much easier to buy an already existing food premises, but that limits your choice of location. 

Once I sorted out with council that my vision was possible, the next step was filling out the applications. For these I needed to get an architect to draw my plans and a building surveyor to check them off. To give you an idea of what permits you have to go through, here is a brief list and how long they took to work through.

• Change of use permit (42 days)
• Trade waste permit (24 days)
• Building permit  (14 days)
• Plumbing permit  (14 day)

As these first plans where getting approved, I worked through an endless list of tasks including getting an ABN, choosing a name, getting a bank loan and moving back to Tasmania

Choosing a name isn’t as easy as it sounds. What I wanted was something bold, humble, amazing, astonishing, remarkable and incredible. Not a simple task. I started thinking of names that meant something to people, but I didn’t want it to be flashy, I wanted the name to be thought-provoking and to have meaning.
The name came up in a completely non-coffee related context, but when I heard the word “pilgrim”, it just clicked. I pulled out my iPhone to get the dictionary definition: “someone on a journey to a sacred place”.  I thought this was great. Pilgrim Coffee it was.

Back to the paperwork, an unexpected highlight was doing the business plan and the profit and loss statements. It was great to put everything down on paper. I learnt a lot, and I highly suggest that everyone in the industry should do one. It may change your opinion on your business prospects. 

March came around and it was time to start building. Wanting to save money I decided to pay the extra rent and do the building and project managing myself. I suggest anyone in a similar position do this, it’s all part of the adventure.

When I first started, the shop was a white shell, with concrete render on every wall and vinyl on the floor. I did some research on the building and found it was built in 1830. I thought this was fantastic, so I figured I would see what I could discover in the building and plan the fit out as I went. To start, I picked up a hammer and chisel. As I tore down the concrete render, I found all of these amazing features, including an impressive convict sandstone feature wall, as well as some huge wooden pillars and beautiful old wood walls. The fit out ended up highlighting these characteristics of the old building in my attempt to restore its former glory. The process also displayed how it had been butchered since it had been built. Using as many recycled products as possible was also high on the agenda. 

When the fit out started it took almost three weeks to finish hammering the concrete from the wall, however this gave me time to think about exactly what end product I wanted and how I was going to produce it.  

The fit out aside, another big decision was what kind of coffee I would stock. I’ve been asked several times if I wanted to roast my own coffee, and the answer was always no. I believe that focusing on the extraction of the coffee and running the business was enough for me. This began my hunt for a roaster. For me seasonality, freshness and quality are very important and I will only accept coffee that impresses me on these fronts and really blows me away.

The combination of Zoe Delany, David Makin and the maverick Matt Perger was too hard to resist, and as such I chose their new enterprise Axil Coffee Roasters for my house blend. As I thrive on variety, I also decided to source single origins from specialty roasters St Ali, Proud Mary, Five Senses and Market Lane.

To match with the coffee I also wanted high quality food. I decided to make gourmet sandwiches in house using only local ingredients. Being in Tasmania it was easy to source local game and free range meats. Fresh fruit and vegetables were also easy to source.

I still needed to source great bread and sweets. After hunting around I found some great suppliers, including a local baker making old-fashioned wood fired bread from flour ground at a local stone mill. I was also lucky enough to meet Tina and Al from Sweet Envy, the best and possibly coolest pastry chefs I’ve ever met. After a little negotiating they agreed to work with me on some coffee and pastry matching, including espresso, cold drip and filter. They said they’ll only keep supplying me if I can keep them interested – I’m sure I can find enough origins and brewing methods for that. 

In this experience of opening a café, I’ve learned that there are a lot of stresses and challenges to work through. There are always hold ups with the council and trade workers, and even as I write this article my opening date has once again been delayed, but we should be open as of 8 August. Although it’s been frustrating at times, this has been one of the greatest experiences of my life and I would definitely do it again.