A young woman, unemployed, needs a job; so starts work on the minimum wage behind the counter in a cafe. A few years later, she’s running coffee shops and cafes all over town and looking at a massive expansion of her business.
But it is no film script, it is happening to Susannah Moffat.
The 34 year old started her career in catering a mere four years ago as an alternative to sitting about on the dole, having graduated with a degree in creative writing from the University of Gloucestershire.
She is now director of two companies, Cheltenham Coffee Co and In The Park, running the Central Cross Cafe and the Boathouse in Pittville Park, as well as the cafes at Sandford Parks Lido.
There’s nothing new about aspiring writers getting a gig in a cafe, but what drove Susannah into being such a successful entrepreneur?
She said: “I spent my 20s singing and playing in bands – I still do that – and then did a degree in creative writing.
“I got the job in the cafe in Pittville Park in 2010 because I needed something to do, I don’t like not having something to do, but I’ve found that there’s a real outlet for creativity in running a business.
“It’s all about how you look at problems, having new ideas about doing things.”
And in her new venture at the lido, Susannah has certainly shaken things up.
Having just opened for the summer season, the cafe has been split into two operations.
Café Lido is available for swimmers and will, as usual, close at the end of summer.
But there’s a second coffee shop – Park Cafe, Sandford Parks – branded with green livery and aprons instead of the aquamarine blue branding Susannah has chosen for the pool cafe which will stay open all year round.
Susannah said: “I’m hoping this cafe can do for Sandford Park what the Central Cross cafe will do for Pittville Park. “It can become a destination, somewhere to meet and bring people to the park.
“At the Central Cross cafe we’ve provided blankets for people to sit on the grass and newspapers and we’re providing a community service, “I want to have jazz events linking the three parks, a big Hallowe’en event and we’ve done Christmas carol singing in Pittville which is really popular.”
But how did Susannah go from just working behind the counter to running an expanding empire?
Susannah smiled from under her dramatic red hair and said: “The cafe, which was just known as the ice cream hut at the time, closed for the winter and the council put it out to tender.
“They wanted someone to run their cafes, that one, the boathouse and the one in Montpellier Gardens. “I only wanted to do one, so I got together with two friends to form Cheltenham Coffee Co and I got loads of books from the library, books about running a business, doing a business plan, running a coffee shop.
“Because it was a council tender it was about 80 pages long – but I think they also knew that because I’d been working in the cafe and had often been on my own, managing it in effect at those times, that I knew what I was doing.”
Susannah’s new ideas included extending the opening hours, whereas the cafe had been open from 10am 5pm, she realised there was a trade to be found from people walking through their park on their way to work.
In three years the cafe’s turnover has nearly quadrupled, Susannah has taken over running of the Boat House in the park after her business partner Gene Waterhouse decided to follow other opportunities and she is bouncing with enthusiasm about her new venture in Sandford Parks.
She said: “We’ve only just opened – we had a month to get it all sorted out, decorated and the new colour scheme up. We’ve got pictures on the wall of the history of the place. It’s such an amazing asset for Cheltenham, I love the lido.”
And news of her success is spreading. She was invited to speak to business students at her alma mater at the University of Gloucestershire.
She added: “That was an honour. I had to start by telling them that I didn’t have a business degree.”
Susannah’s particular expertise at running cafes in parks and gardens has even seen her approached by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; she was asked to provide a report on how to improve the catering operations in places like Holland Park and Kensington Memorial Gardens.
Susannah said: “I went down and had a look. There’s five parks and gardens. I went to their Holland Park offices.
“At the moment they’re providing instant coffee and packaged biscuits and they wanted something more like what we’re doing here, with homemade food and really good coffees and teas.
“ They’re going to put them out to tender, I think.”
And might she put in a bid?
“I might. I don’t know. I’d have to spend half the week in London if I did that.
“I’d also definitely have to get an office. At the minute I don’t have one, it’s my front room. So that would have to change.”
Susannah, who still sings and plays in bands when she finds the time, admits that she hasn’t done much creative writing since she graduated.
There’s definitely a screenplay to be written in her experiences over the last four years – but it might get turned down for being unrealistically easy – surely no one can be that good from a standing start? Except it would appear, Susannah is.
She’s only four years into her business career, and there’s a long way to go, but soon parks all over the country may be filled with cafes run by a Cheltenham girl who once took a job in a café because it was that or the dole queue.
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