Coffee Mania has been serving Cardiff Bay’s residents and visitors for 25 years.
The result of two lifelong friends’ shared passion for the culinary arts, their first location opened on July 27, 2001 as part of Mermaid Quay during the Bay’s redevelopment.
Since moving next door to Techniquest in 2020, Paul Chandler and Sarah Thomas have had to navigate big chain competitors, viral drink trends, and running a coffee shop during a pandemic.
To celebrate 25 years as part of the Cardiff Bay community, Paul spoke to us about the history of Coffee Mania (and how they came up with that name), their recent sustainability push, and the Matcha Boom.
How did you and Sarah meet and how did you get the idea to open a coffee shop?
Sarah and I actually met when we were 16, going back to 1986 — which is also 40 years this year! We met at catering college. We were there for four or five years and then we drifted off and did our own things but we were always in a group of friends that met up and had dinner a couple times a year.
I ended up working at [Utilita Arena Cardiff], and I worked up to become the catering manager there, and Sarah was restaurant manager at St. David’s Hall. I was in the Arena about 10 years — and I’d worked in a hotel before that, so there was about 15 years of working — and I think we were just out one night and both of us said we wanted to do something else.
I was literally — this must’ve been in the year 2000 — driving down the Bay, and Mermaid Quay was just being built. There was a sign that said ‘coffee shop to let’, and there was no Starbucks or any other big chain around here at the time. After seeing that sign I phoned Sarah and asked “do you want to open a coffee shop?” — a year later we opened our first one in Mermaid Quay.
I remember going through a dictionary at my old job and pairing words with ‘coffee’ — ‘something-something Coffee’ or ‘Coffee something-something’ — to see what worked as a name. I’d do that all week then go to Sarah on the weekends with a list of some that might work. Once we got to about eight or nine, we checked Companies House to see which were already taken. That’s how we came up with Coffee Mania!
From initially doing that in 2001, the deal was that Sarah would give up her job [at St. David’s Hall] straight away but I stayed in my job for two or three years until the business took off. Then I gave my job up, we were both over [at Mermaid Quay], and in 2003 we actually opened on Caroline Street, where the Greggs is now.
Because I was only at Coffee Mania on the weekends, or whenever my days off were, I took on more of the admin side, whereas Sarah was in the shop every day, preparing the products. I suppose as time has gone on, that dynamic has stuck — I’ve looked after the admin side while Sarah is in charge of the products and the creative side.
What has changed the most since you started 25 years ago?
The Bay has changed massively. As I said, when we opened in 2001, Starbucks had just come over to the UK and had opened a shop in Bristol. I knew somebody that worked for them. I remember being warned that the Bay was considered ‘the place to be’, and at some point we’d have competition from a big chain like Starbucks. We opened, and probably five years later, they opened right behind us.
We saw it as a positive thing: all of a sudden, people would start ordering drinks from us that they were getting from them, which has continued ever since. We do spend a lot of time going to Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Pret [a Manger], just to see what they’re doing, what the new trends are, but also because people will sometimes order in their languages here. We want to be able to offer an alternative.
The chains haven’t got exclusive rights to new products, so it’s about us putting our own spin on certain ones and finding ways to offer the same product as a small business.
So you’re doing market research at these big chains?
Yes, among other types of research. When we opened the Mermaid Quay location, we would sit on the bench outside of that location at all times of the day, just counting the people passing by to get a feel for the footfall in the Bay. We followed that pattern on at our branches in town and in the Millennium Centre.
We’ve always tried to be a bit different; some of the food we do is different to other coffee shops, but back when we opened, stuff like chai was quite new. Fast forward 25 years and it’s all about matcha and bubble tea. Again, we want to do it in a way that’s unique to us, while not just turning into a matcha shop or a bubble tea shop.
It’s important to keep your finger on the pulse. People do come in and start asking for those things, so it’s always been important to keep up with food and drink trends.
Can you talk a little bit about Coffee Mania’s sustainability push?
That’s only been highlighted in maybe the past five years, that sustainability push. For instance, when we were at Crema in the WMC in 2020, we started bagging up coffee grounds for people to take for their gardens.
We joined a pilot in Cardiff and stocked reusable take-away cups that customers could return to any partnered café in the city, which was a brilliant idea that ended up saving about 10,000 disposable cups over the course of the scheme.
The takeaway cups that we use now are fully biodegradable, and we’ve recently swapped to the cardboard lids rather than the plastics. Because we make a lot of food in plastic containers, we decided to set up a stand where people can take those containers away for themselves — for batch cooking at home or using as a lunchbox — rather than us just throwing them out.
We ended up with lots of china, which we tried to give to a charity shop, but they refused because it has a logo on it. We decided to put it with the plastic containers for people to take for their homes.
We had our umbrellas for about two or three years, and they needed replacing, so I went back to the company and they let us know that they had changed the way they were made. Firstly, rather than having to replace the entire thing if, say, a spoke broke on the umbrella, now you just have to buy a replacement part for whatever’s broken and replace that. Secondly, the fabric they use for the umbrella is made now from recycled plastic bottles.
It comes together like that: when we find another little way that we can make our operation more sustainable, we always try to do it.
It sounds like you’ve worked hard to maintain relationships with suppliers and staff.
There’s a cake supplier that we’ve used virtually from day one, they opened not long after we did. And they’ll go out of their way for us; making us little bespoke products when we ask them to, because we have that kind of connection with them.
The company that services our refrigeration also started up when we did and we’ve stuck with them for the 25 years. It is important to have those relationships, because when something does go wrong, they do jump into action for you and are able to help.
And the coffee that we use. When we were starting out, I was familiar with what they could do, and their products and their training. They had these ‘Espresso Labs’ in Islington, London, where we’ve been with our staff to have an intensive training day. We’ve stuck with them ever since the beginning.
What’s next for Coffee Mania?
We’ve always maintained that if an exciting opportunity came along then we would certainly look at doing it. I don’t think we want to jump out and do another shop, however, there are lots of things that we are starting to do with [Techniquest] next door, in terms of buffets and events. That can almost be another business on its own.
We’re happy where we are, enjoying branching out with the events catering, and we’re just looking to see what the next trend or craze is and how we can make it our own.
From all of us at Techniquest, we’d like to wish Coffee Mania — Paul and Sarah, and the rest of the team — a very happy 25th anniversary. We couldn’t ask for a better neighbour.