Monmouth Coffee Company
TypePrivate
Industrycoffee roasting, Coffee shops
Founded1978 (1978) in 27 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London, England
FoundersNicholas Saunders
Anita Le Roy
Headquarters
Arch 3, Discovery Estate
St James's Road, Bermondsey, London
Number of locations
3 (2022)[1]
Websitewww.monmouthcoffee.co.uk

Monmouth Coffee Company is a coffee roaster, retailer and wholesaler in London, which was founded in 1978. It played an important role in regenerating Neal's Yard and Borough Market. It has remained focused on roasting and selling coffee beans and was one of the foundations for the third wave of coffee in London after the year 2000.

History

Monmouth Coffee was founded in 1978 by Nick Saunders and Anita Le Roy. Le Roy later took over the business.[2][3] Together with Neal's Yard Dairy and Saunders' other businesses, Monmouth Coffee transformed the run down area around Neal's Yard in Covent Garden, central London.[4] The original shop is at 27 Monmouth Street (51°30′51.7″N 00°07′36.5″W / 51.514361°N 0.126806°W / 51.514361; -0.126806 (Covent Garden)), a grade II listed 18th-century terraced house.[5] The basement was used to roast coffee and the ground floor as a tasting room.[6] In its early years, the shop sold three or four kinds of green or roast coffee beans in sacks containing one, three, seven or ten pounds.[7] Le Roy wanted to buy coffee from individual farmers, but that was not possible until 1996, when a new coffee importer, Mercanta, opened. Monmouth Coffee was one of their early customers.[8] Monmouth Coffee and Mercanta were a foundation for the third wave of artisan coffee shops in London after 2000 and several Monmouth Coffee baristas went on to found their own coffee businesses.[9][10]

Monmouth Coffee has expanded gradually, while remaining focused on roasting and selling coffee beans.[11] A coffee stall was opened in Borough Market in 1999,[12] followed by a second shop in a former fruit and vegetable warehouse in the market (51°30′19.8″N 00°05′29.1″W / 51.505500°N 0.091417°W / 51.505500; -0.091417 (Borough)) in 2001.[9][13][14]: 95  Along with Brindisa and Neal's Yard Dairy, Monmouth Coffee played an important role in the revival of Borough as a retail food market.[15] In 2007 the roastery was moved to three railway arches in Maltby Street, Bermondsey.[14]: 92  In 2009 an arch was opened to sell coffee on Saturdays and other local traders followed suit, forming Maltby Street Market.[16] In 2018 the company headquarters moved into five railway arches (51°29′46″N 00°04′05″W / 51.49611°N 0.06806°W / 51.49611; -0.06806 (Bermondsey)) at Spa Terminus in Bermondsey,[17][11] where Monmouth Coffee, Neal's Yard Dairy and a property company had taken a lease on a stretch of railway arches around the former Spa Road railway station to provide accommodation for food manufacturers and wholesalers.[18]


Activities

Monmouth Coffee sources coffee beans from individual farms and roasts them in its roastery in Bermondsey. Its staff visit producers to find new suppliers, then the company signs long term contracts to secure its supply of high-quality coffee.[19]

It sells coffee beans direct via its website, and via its two retail shops, which also serve coffee to drink. The roastery also opens as a retail shop on Saturdays.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "Our shops". Monmouth Coffee Company. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
  2. ↑ Robson, David (27 February 1998). "The prophet of Neal's Yard". New Statesman. Vol. 127, Issues 4366-4378. p. 32. Retrieved 19 December 2021. With a friend, he opened a shop and coffee house in Monmouth Street, which backs on to Neal's Yard. A few years later the friend took it over.
  3. ↑ Ryan, Don (24 July 2008). "Quality coffee takes more than an instant". Camden New Journal. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  4. ↑ Fort, Matthew (12 January 2008). "Around Britain with a fork". Guardian. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  5. ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1322119)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Forshaw, Alec (15 February 2011). 1970s London Discovering the Capital. History Press. ISBN 9780750956468. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  7. ↑ Gault, Henri; Millau, Christian (1982). Le guide de Londres [The Guide to London] (in French). Gault-Millau. ISBN 9782902968077. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  8. ↑ Eldridge, Cory (6 April 2015). "London: The Once and Future Coffee Capital". Fresh Cup Magazine. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  9. 1 2 Wain, Phil (10 November 2018). "A History of London Coffee —– Part One: Setting the Scene". Phil Wain. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  10. ↑ Buranyi, Stephen (20 June 2020). "How London became a city of flat-white drinkers". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  11. 1 2 3 Dowdy, Clare (28 March 2019). "Monmouth Coffee takes over five railway arches in London". Wallpaper. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  12. ↑ Smith, Ed (4 October 2018). The Borough Market Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Year at the Market. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781473678699.
  13. ↑ Lander, Nick (13 March 2002). "A great new addition to Borough Market". Jancis Robinson. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  14. 1 2 Coles, Benjamin (3 May 2021). Making Markets Making Place: Geography, Topo/graphy and the Reproduction of an Urban Marketplace. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030728649.
  15. ↑ Parham, Susan (2012). Market Place: Food Quarters, Design and Urban Renewal in London. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 233. ISBN 9781443841726.
  16. ↑ "Rogue traders: How Maltby Street took on Borough Market". Evening Standard. 21 July 2011. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  17. ↑ Coghlan, Adam (2 October 2018). "Pioneering London Coffee Company's Roastery Makes Way for New Restaurants". Eater London. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  18. ↑ Fernández-Esquinas, Hugo; van Oostrom, Madelon; Pinto, Manuel (7 December 2018). Innovation in SMEs and Micro Firms: Culture, Entrepreneurial Dynamics and Regional Development. Taylor & Francis. p. 196. ISBN 9781351016148.
  19. ↑ Coles, Benjamin (2016). "Chapter 12: Ingesting Places: embodied geographies of coffee". In Abbots, Emma-Jayne; Lavis, Anna (eds.). Why We Eat, How We Eat. Taylor & Francis. pp. 255–270. ISBN 9781134766031.
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