With the opening of its new roastery, Grind & Co has the space to further expand its artisan coffee, restaurant and night-time offer. Co-founder David Abrahamovitch talks to Finn Scott-Delany
When Grind & Co emerged five years ago the coffee market was a very different place.
While foodies and hipsters were wise to the joys of a flat white, the Australian-imported term had little recognition among the average Starbucks coffee drinker.
“The coffee world has changed dramatically,” Grind co-founder David Abrahamovitch said. “We felt like we were one of the first to do proper coffee at scale in a prominent location. When we started the average person hadn’t heard of a flat white, they weren’t aware of the independent third-wave coffee movement.”
Fast-forward five years and Grind has emerged as one of a small handful of groups flying the flag for artisan coffee with an eye on expansion. The coffee group, backed by entrepreneur John Ayton, has now opened its own roastery in Shoreditch and is preparing to launch its seventh site in Clerkenwell in October.
The new roastery and training lab will enable the company to roll out three or four sites over the next year – on top of recent openings in Covent Garden and the Royal Exchange, as well as a major expansion of its London Bridge site – which will double its capacity.
Founded by Abrahamovitch and business partner Kaz James, a DJ and musician formerly of electronic duo BodyRockers, their aim was to bring the thriving coffee culture of James’s hometown, Melbourne, to east London.
Side project
Abrahamovitch was working at a technology start-up when the first Grind opened on Old Street roundabout — now the heart of London’s so-called Tech City.
It was a side project for the pair for two years before Abrahamovitch went full time and branches in Soho, Holborn and the City followed.
Grind has worked hard to keep its offer diverse. It has breakfast and evening food menus that are tailored to each site, as well as a cocktail menu that puts the espresso martini centre stage.
Bridging the cultural and lifestyle intersections between coffee, music and tech, Grind was one of the first UK restaurants to take a payment through Apple Pay.
Its latest opening in Clerkenwell will further develop Grind’s food offer, while introducing a basement after-hours club concept with DJs into the mix, on top of its two recording studios.
Meanwhile, the new roastery and barista training lab in Shoreditch will give Grind a solid foundation for future expansion. “There are a number of benefits,” Abrahamovitch said. “Most importantly it means we own as much of the production chain as possible. The key to good coffee is consistency. It’s about minimising the number of variables. The more you can control, the better the product you can come up with. It gives us plenty of capacity to see us through our current site pipeline.
“From a business perspective it gives us security because we’re not relying on anyone else, which can be quite a risk. We no longer have to build in a third party to our profit margins. It makes us more financially stable and able to roll out more sites.”
Grind’s six-strong estate currently gets through half a tonne of beans a week, while it can now roast up to two tonnes a week, having previously relied on a third-party roaster, giving it plenty of capacity for expansion.
The roastery was funded via a crowdfunding campaign last year which exceeded its target of £750,000 by raising £1.3m in bonds. These have also gone towards developing a Grind app which will enable customers to order and earn points via a loyalty scheme.
Grind has also benefited from major investment from Ayton, co-founder of Links of London, who is a non-executive director of the company.
But despite its confident expansion, Abrahamovitch said the rollout of the business had to be done carefully to maintain consistency. “We’re absolutely going to keep expanding and open more sites next year”, he said. “We’ll probably open three or four. We don’t particular want to go loads faster than that. That’s the limit you can do to a really high standard. As soon as you move into the one-a-month territory you’re into a much more chain-style copy/paste roll- out, which is not what we’re about.”
Meanwhile, new openings are dependent on finding the right sites that suit the character of the company.
Defining factor
“It all starts with finding beautiful buildings”, he said. “Nearly all our estate is listed, either Grade I or II. It’s about finding buildings we fall in love with.
“We don’t do glass boxes or shopping centres. We don’t do run-of-the-mill sites. They’re unique. That’s the defining factor.”
While coffee is Grind’s core product, Abrahamovitch is mindful of the potential pitfalls of relying solely on a day-time coffee offer. As well as cocktails, food and commercial partnerships, which have seen Grind create an exclusive blend for Twitter UK, there is even a music recording studio above Shoreditch Grind.
Originally set up for Kaz’s music projects, the studio has become an attraction in its own right for the likes of chart-toppers Sam Smith, FKA Twigs, Pixie Lott and Tinie Tempah.
“We’re about much more than coffee,” Abrahamovitch added. “It’s our core product, but a lot of our revenue now comes from cocktails. We have full-on restaurants. We’re diversifying to reduce that risk.
“I do worry how sustainable the daytime-only coffee shop in prime central London is. Unless there’s a correction in rent, it’s going to be a challenge for people to open daytime-only coffee venues.
“In Australia, which is so often ahead of the game, we’ve seen a big movement to table service, much more full service with food and alcohol and coffee all under one roof.”
