Leaders from Bold Street Coffee and Coffee House join debate at Northern Restaurant & Bar showcase
From left, Will Kenney, of 200 Degrees Coffee, Holly Kragiopoulos of North Star Coffee Roasters in Leeds, Matt Farrell of Bold Street Coffee, and Chris Shelmerdine, from North West chain Coffee House(Image: Alistair Houghton)
The North’s independent coffee shops might be bucking the trend in the hospitality sector, some of the North’s top coffee experts have said.
Leaders from Bold Street Coffee and 32-strong North West chain Coffee House joined a debate on the future of the coffee market at the massive Northern Restaurant & Bar showcase in Manchester.
Asked about the health of the market, Holly Kragiopoulos, CEO at North Star Coffee Roasters in Leeds, was upbeat – saying she was “definitely positive about a market for better coffee in the UK”. She added: “People are demanding better and better not just in coffee shops but in apartment lobbies and gyms…”
Matt Farrell, co-founder at Bold Street Coffee owner GSG Hospitality, said that while hospitality was having its challenges more broadly, “I would say the speciality coffee industry is probably bucking the trend in that sense” as more people look for better coffee while drinking less alcohol and looking to their wellbeing.
Chris Shelmerdine, managing director at North West chain Coffee House, said his journey into coffee first started when he went to the original Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool 15 years ago.
Today his business has 42 outlets – and starts fitting out numbers 43 and 44 next week. It also includes a central production site and kitchen where the coffee is roasted and bread baked, and employs some 450 people.
“It’s been a long 15 years,” smiled Chris.
Event host Will Kenney, commercial director at 200 Degrees Coffee, asked Matt about his expansion ambitions for Bold Street Coffee. Matt said he and his colleagues had thought long and hard about how to grow sustainably, and had decided to make sure they could plan for a range of outlets from full-service food and drink outlets through to smaller coffee-focused ones. He mentioned a recent collaboration with Climbing Hangar at its South Liverpool venue, and said the firm was open to “collaboration and testing” on potential new outlets. He added that he also wanted the business to have its own roastery and bakery central unit.
Chris discussed how his business had expanded largely by focusing on locations beyond big city centres, in what are called “secondary high streets” but that are at the heart of their smaller communities. He said: “We need to stick to our knitting and continue with that”.
In terms of properties, he said the business particularly likes corner spots that were highly visible. And he said the changing retail market and uncertain economic climate has led to more such units becoming available to a small business like his, whereas “If we’d been doing this 20 years ago we probably wouldn’t have a look-in at these kinds of properties”.
The panel was asked what advice they’d give for people looking to grow their own coffee shop chains. Holly’s Leeds business has 300 wholesale partnerships and two city outlets – with another two soon to open. She said that while she had confidence in the future, customers were challenged by rising costs and so her team had seen consumer spending change, with more people making “grab and go” purchases of coffee and cakes rather than sit-in breakfasts.
Matt agreed, saying: “I think it’s a good time to be expanding especially in the coffee industry. In the rest of hospitality, I’m not sure about that.”
He noted that the coffee and bar industries are very different in terms of how taxes work, and he said potential coffee entrepreneurs needed to pay close attention to those rules — such as, for example, the tax implications of offering hot food or not.
Chris warned that setting up a central team as his company had done was costly at first, but paid dividends down the line.
On costs, he said he believed coffee entrepreneurs should try to self-fund their business at the early stage, and that founders should stay working hands-on in the business for as long as possible to ensure they always know how everything works. He said: “Don’t go early on the overheads. Sweat it a bit. Go through a little bit of pain.”
Holly said that post-pandemic, many more people had looked to realise their dream of opening a coffee shop. She said people needed to manage their expectations, saying for example that they needed to learn it was unrealistic for founders to think they could “remove themselves from the day-to-day within six months”.
Crowds at the Northern Restaurant & Bar 2026 at Manchester Central(Image: Alistair Houghton)
And she said people needed to be aware they needed cash as “a big cushion to get you through those early months” not just for initial setup costs.
Matt talked about his dealings with property agents over potential sites, and said that coffee entrepreneurs should realise that landlords need them almost as much as they need landlords.
He said: “It’s important that operators know their own clout. Those developers, they need you in there… for high-rise communities, they need you in there”.
One audience member asked whether the panel had any thoughts on how much coffee might cost in the future, given rising costs generally and given the way climate change might affect the coffee production chain.
Chris observed that a cup of coffee was £2.40 or £2.60 for a decade but had now risen. He added that coffee operators had got to “make sure we’re really good” to make sure customers kept coming.
Bold Street Coffee has expanded from its original location to sites across Liverpool and Manchester(Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)
He said that despite talk of change in other industries, AI won’t necessarily make a difference to the practical operations of coffee shops. “These are people businesses,” he said. “We have to turn up every day, put the lights on, and welcome people coming through the door.”
Matt said he believed people will still pay for a good product. He said: “People are only parting with their money if they feel they’re getting worth out of it.”
He added: “People need to pay what it’s worth. We shouldn’t be undercutting ourselves.”
Holly said coffee had “been undervalued for too long” so it will get more expensive, with a £4 cup becoming the norm.
She said: “The reality is we’ve never paid enough for coffee.”
