Having found myself on an errand in Newmarket on a hot day in June 2008 I looked around for a suitable place for a coffee. This when I first discovered Coffee & Co, a fabulous little coffee shop just off the High Street on a quiet little corner of the town (corner of Sun Lane and Palace Street) which was just perfect. On this day, and there were to be many more later in 2008 when I was visiting the town nearly every day, Julie, the owner, served up an excellent latte and a fabulous piece of Chocolate Malteser cheesecake. I was able to relax in the comfortable little coffee shop, which had a charm and style a million miles from Costa and Starbucks. On subsequent visits, when I was able to sample the ‘best roast beef and cheddar panini in Newmarket’, I got to know Julie Eden quite well and more recently found out what first brought her into the coffee business.

Coffee & Co's outdoor pavement seating

In 2002 a coffee shop in Newmarket was in need of a partner and Julie provided her expertise; within six weeks she had taken over the business completely and in her own words, has “never looked back”. Julie’s career background was in care agency management but had also run a successful catering business in the past and so she had a great deal of experience. But she freely admits that running a coffee shop is different and has been a great deal of hard work. Coffee & Co has been described as one of the main gossip centres of the town and Julie loves the intrigue, the coffee business and the contact with customers of all different kinds. Julie says, “we know what’s going on with everyone in the town, the marriage break ups, the affairs and who has done what to whom!” I asked her how the credit crunch has affected business – “well it’s not been a bad year so far [2009]; people still feel they deserve a small treat and so £5–10 on lunch is not so bad, although I suppose we are helped by Newmarket being quite an affluent town.”

New interior - we love the vibrant colours!

So what are the main difficulties in running a small coffee shop? “Cash flow can be a problem as overheads such as rent rates and utilities are so high but VAT is also a significant factor.” The coffee shop always seems to have a steady flow of custom streaming through, so I wondered whether there were any plans to expand, and perhaps set up another branch of Coffee & Co? “A couple of years ago we had another smaller operation in a travel agents on the High Street in Newmarket but, although the owner was enthusiastic, an employee made the working relationship rather difficult and it closed. I think customers at that time did not quite grasp that they could have a gourmet coffee and browse for a holiday at the same time, although now we see Costa and Starbucks routinely sited inside other stores such as bookshops, health clubs, garden centres and kids clothes shops … The costs of expanding can be phenomenal – as an example I recently made an enquiry about the cost of a site in the new ‘Arc’ shopping centre in Bury St Edmunds and this required a rent of £50,000 per year. What I would really like to do is to open a branch in Cambridge, but again the rents are far too high at the moment.”

Cafe interior: Surf while you sup in the Internet corner

Julie loves the coffee shop business and has now rekindled her previous outside catering services so that the food served at Coffee & Co can be enjoyed across Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk at corporate and private events. BestCuppa wish Julie at Coffee & Co all the best for the future and we’ll keep popping in for a latte and a cake when we visit Newmarket!