I'm not always behind the counter when you order your morning flat white, but my team is, and they're brilliant at it. By the time they're pulling shots at 7am, I've probably already been up for hours, thinking about the broken seal on the fridge, the rota gap next Tuesday, or whether I can stretch the maintenance budget to fix the toilet and replace the grinder burrs this month.
People assume running a coffee shop means I spend my days chatting to customers and sipping espresso. The reality? I'm a plumber. A carpenter. A decorator. An amateur electrician who's watched enough YouTube videos to be dangerous. I'm HR, accounts, health and safety, and head of morale. I unblock drains, patch walls, negotiate with suppliers, chase invoices, and sit up late trying to make the numbers work.
And yes, I bloody love coffee. I love getting it right. I love watching a customer's face when they take that first sip of something properly made. I love building a team that cares as much as I do about getting the details right.
But passion doesn't pay the bills. And right now, the bills are winning.
The hits just keep coming
Let me walk you through what the last five years have looked like for businesses like mine:
2020 - Covid. Lockdowns. Government loans that felt like lifelines but were really just debt with a delayed fuse. We pivoted, we adapted, we survived. Just.
2021-2022 - Energy prices exploded. Our electricity bills tripled. Then came the dairy crisis, the coffee bean shortage, the supply chain chaos. Every single ingredient we use got more expensive, often by 30-50%.
2023-2024 - VAT stuck at 20% while our European competitors pay half that. The minimum wage rose (rightly so, we want to pay our staff properly), but that increase ripples through your entire payroll. You can't pay your experienced barista only 50p more than someone on their first day. Everyone's wages go up. That's money that has to come from somewhere.
2025 - Employers' National Insurance just went up. Business rates are set to rise again. Politicians talk about supporting high streets while simultaneously making it impossible to survive on them.
Eight pence
In 2019, a flat white cost £2.80. Today it's £4.00. Sounds like a big increase, right?
But food prices alone have risen 40% since then. That £2.80 flat white, adjusted just for food inflation, should cost £3.92 today.
We charge £4.00. That's 8p above food inflation.
Eight pence to cover energy bills that tripled. Eight pence for staff wages that rose across the board. Eight pence for employer National Insurance increases. Eight pence for business rates. Eight pence for rent. Eight pence for equipment. Eight pence for packaging that costs 70% more than it used to.
We're not profiteering. We're drowning.
The invisible owner
Here's what customers never see: the owner making less than minimum wage.
I don't say that for sympathy. I say it because it's the truth behind almost every independent coffee shop that looks "successful" from the outside. The owner pays everyone else first, the staff, the suppliers, the landlord, HMRC, and takes whatever's left. Often that's nothing. Sometimes it's less than nothing.
We work 50, 60, 70-hour weeks. Not glamorous barista hours, the unglamorous stuff. Fixing the leak at 10pm. Redoing the rota at midnight because someone's called in sick. Spending Sunday afternoon on the accounts instead of with family. Learning how to replaster a wall because we can't afford to pay someone else to do it.
We do it because we built something we believe in. Because our team depends on us. Because our regulars have become friends. Because closing the doors feels like failure, even when the failure isn't ours. It's a system that's stacked against us.
What politicians don't understand
When a coffee shop closes, it's not just a business that disappears. It's:
A young person losing their first job, the one that taught them responsibility, teamwork, how to show up on time and deal with a difficult customer with grace. We give people their start in work. We take chances on people who've never had a chance before.
A community hub, where the lonely find company, where new parents find other new parents, where freelancers find a reason to leave the house, where teenagers have somewhere safe to be.
A safe space, for conversations that matter. For the regular who comes in every day because it's the only time they talk to anyone. For the person having a hard day who just needs a friendly face and a decent coffee.
We're not "just" coffee shops. We're the social fabric of communities. And we're being strangled by a political class that sees "small business" as a line in a conference speech rather than real people keeping the lights on.
The great invisible subsidy
Here's what no politician will ever admit: every independent coffee shop owner in this country is effectively subsidising their community. We pay ourselves last (if at all). We absorb price increases we should pass on. We employ people we can barely afford to employ.
We do it because we care. But caring doesn't pay the bills.
What needs to change
This isn't complicated:
- Reduce VAT for hospitality to 12.5%, like it was during Covid, like much of Europe already has
- Freeze or reduce business rates for independent operators
- Reverse the Employers' NI increase for small businesses
- Recognise that high street hospitality is infrastructure, not luxury
Every week, another coffee shop closes. The rate is accelerating. This isn't natural market correction. It's death by a thousand government cuts.
A final thought
If you're reading this and you love your local coffee shop, support them. Understand that when they raise prices, they're not being greedy. They've probably absorbed three price increases before passing one on to you.
And if you're a politician reading this, actually listen. Come and spend a week in our shoes. Not behind the counter, behind the scenes. Watch us fix the plumbing, redo the rota, negotiate with suppliers, chase late payments, and sit up at midnight wondering if we can make it through another year.
We are the lifeblood of communities. Stop bleeding us dry.