London’s boutique coffee shop revolution continues apace with much-lauded brands Caravan, Grind and Daisy Green all in the process of expanding their operations.
 
As reported in World Coffee Portal’s Spotlight interview, Caravan Restaurant Bar and Roastery are in the process of renovating a Victorian warehouse at the Lamb Works in Holloway. Due to open in the summer, the 8,500sq ft space will house a new roaster and education space, with the founding trio also announcing plans to a fifth outlet on Great Portland Street.
 
Antipodean founders Laura Harper-Hinton, Chris Ammermann and Miles Kirby also revealed a new brand concept, ‘Caravan To Go’, this month. Based in Fitzrovia, the new grab-and-go format store will offer pastries, sandwiches, hot food – and, of course, premium coffee.
 
Also making a foray into the food-to-go sector, coffee shop chain Grind, famed for its brunch menu and espresso martinis, announced a deal with transport hub specialist, SSP, last year. The eight-strong coffee shop, bar and restaurant chain has set its sights on national expansion via SSP’s extensive travel hub franchise network.

Speaking about the move at Allegra’s UK Coffee Leader Summit in March, Grind CEO and founder David Abrahamovitch said: “We want to take super high-quality coffee to the masses, but we need to do that where the economics are different, and that place is travel.”
 
Australian brunch-themed café chain, Daisy Green, is also targeting more sites in the UK capital and plans to operate 14 outlets by 2020. The company, which currently has 8 London sites, is set to open a 4,000sq ft restaurant in in Noel Street, Soho. Co-founder, Prue Freeman, who also spoke at Allegra’s UK Coffee Leader Summit, revealed that Daisy Green’s revenue had reached £10m. The expansion is part of a diversification strategy that has seen the coffee shop and restaurant branch out from coffee and cakes to a successful brunch and dinner concept.
 
The success of the brands reflects findings in Allegra’s Project Cafe 2018 report, which identified the UK's coffee shop market is leading the way for a new wave of business-focussed, hyper professional and premium boutique brands to take a greater market share of the £9.6bn UK coffee shop market.