Background

In October 2004, Simon Berry and Mark Upton agreed with Costa Ltd to create Life Coffee Cafés Ltd, (LCCL) as the principle UK Franchisee for out of town retail and leisure park locations and non motorway roadside sites.

Stores were opened in Dartford, Kent and St. Austell, Cornwall in December 2005. A third store was opened in the British Land retail park in Orpington, Kent in June 2006. A fourth store was added in July 2007 in West Cornwall Shopping Park, Hayle, also owned by British Land.

Stores numbers 5 and 6 were opened in 2008 in Shepton Mallet, Wiltshire and Emersons Green in Bristol (see store locations). In March 2009 a seventh store was opened in Hayes, Middlesex, on the Lombardy Retail Park. In August 2010 a further store was opened in Weston-super-Mare.

The Company has also invested significantly to creating a platform of head office infrastructure including bespoke systems created to fully computerise the labour scheduling and payroll systems for the company, to enable sustained growth in store numbers.

LCCL have also agreed to open in 2011 stores in Wellington and 2 stores in Gloucester taking the company total to 11. LCCL also has a pipeline of a further 11 opportunities.

 

The company which is owned by the directors. The LCCL account for y/e 2010 showed an EBDTA of £267,000 on T/O of £2.7 million.