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History of Capital Roasters.

The company began life in the early 1990’s when two Tenby families who ran guesthouses thought it would be a good idea to try selling coffee to other local businesses.  They found a company based in London (Smiths Coffee Company) and started buying a few boxes of prepacked coffee. This began to grow into quite a decent little business and The Southbourne Coffee Company was founded.

In discussion with the owner of Smiths Coffee Company it was decided to set up a small roasting plant in Pembroke Dock. Suitable premises were found, and a coffee roaster was installed at Unit 8 Kingswood Trading Estate. At this time there was interest in supplying flavoured coffee to America and this led to the purchase of a larger Probat roaster from Denmark. Whilst the American business failed to get off the ground, the decision to produce flavoured coffee for the domestic market was pursued and the company became the UK’s first supplier of flavoured coffee beans.

Over the next few years things didn’t go so well for the business and the relationship with Smith’s Coffee Company broke down. In 1999 an outside investor, who was also involved in the coffee industry in London, became involved with Southbourne Coffee Company, changed the name to Capital Roasters and it became a limited company.

Whilst still supplying a small number of Pembrokeshire businesses with coffee, there was a need to increase the turnover of the business and some larger wholesale customers were found to help make the company more profitable.

The company continued to roast coffee for several years without really making any significant profits and it was decided to part company with the London investor. By 2008 the only original partner decided it was time to retire but he didn’t know what to do with the company.

It was at this point that the current owner, Phil Smith, became involved by pure chance. Phil had a summer job, after finishing school having completed his O levels, painting the outside of his parents’ friend’s coffee factory. He started studying engineering at a local college but quickly discovered that this wasn’t really “his thing”. He had a part time job 2 days a week working on a fruit and veg stall on St.Albans market which he really enjoyed. One day the owner of the coffee company was passing and saw Phil on the stall. He had been impressed by Phil’s attitude to work when he was painting the factory and decided it might be worth asking if he wanted to come and work for him full-time. As he had nothing better planned Phil decided he might as well give it a go until he decided what he really wanted to do with his life. As it happened, he ended up working in the same company for 23 years! Initially starting at the bottom, he learnt how to roast coffee, and spent many hours tasting all the different origins and creating new blends. This was of great interest to Phil and as it happened something he was particularly good at. The company grew and soon moved to a much bigger facility in Hemel Hempstead in 1997, which he eventually ended up running.

Phil, his wife Tina, and their two daughters had enjoyed holidays in their caravan at Freshwater East for several years and often dreamt of moving to Pembrokeshire when they retired. At around this time things at Smiths Coffee company began to get very difficult for Phil and he and Tina were struggling to make ends meet. Tina then successfully applied to join Thames valley Police and was awaiting a start date for her new job.

It was at this point that things suddenly got interesting! Whilst in the offices at work one day Phil overheard one half of a conversation his boss was having on the phone. Ever curious, Phil listened in and deduced that the discussion involved the owner of Capital Roasters and the fact that he wanted to retire from the business but didn’t know what to do with it.

What happened next was to change the course of Phil & Tina’s and their children’s lives forever.

Phil went home from work the very same day and told Tina that they were going to sell their family home and move to Pembrokeshire to buy a coffee company! Tina’s first reaction was ‘how the heck are we going to do that we don’t have any money! Undaunted Phil decided to phone the owner that evening to see if he wanted to sell the business. After a short call it was decided that the possibility of buying the business should be explored. The house was put on the market and negotiations began around how exactly the purchase would happen. A price for the company was agreed and plans put in place of how the money would be found to make this happen.

By an unfortunate turn of fate, the following day the news headlines announced that the UK was officially in quite a dramatic recession and property and investment values had dropped significantly overnight. This had an unexpected and worrying effect on the purchase of the business. The selling price that could be realized for their property went down, as did the value of a small investment that Phil had been paying into for many years. The upshot of this was that they were short of quite a large chunk of money to be able to proceed with the purchase.

Never one to give up Phil decided there was only one thing to do and that was to ask for a loan to cover the shortfall. Going to a bank was out of the question as Tina had by now given up her two part time jobs and also told Thames Valley Police that she wouldn’t be taking up their job offer. Again, by chance, Phil had recently gained a new business customer at work, a new online shop, and having met them a few times he decided to ask if they might lend him the money to complete the deal. The worst they could say was no! They were already onboard to move their business with Phil down to Wales and thankfully were more than happy to lend the required money.

Phil & Tina breathed a huge sigh of relief and continued with their plans thinking the worst was behind them, how wrong they were.

Moving house is rarely straightforward and this house move proved this to be the case. Whilst they had found a suitable house in Pembroke Dock and agreed to buy it, completing the sale of their property was proving difficult. Their buyers in Manchester were having problems with their own sale as part of their property was showing as being owned by someone else! It turns out that a strip of land at the bottom of their garden, and the rest of the adjoining properties was showing on the Land Registry as being owned by the neighboring sports ground owned by a Christian Brotherhood. Contact was made with one of the Monks and everything was in hand to resolve this issue until unfortunately he died. To make matters worse the Monk they were dealing with hadn’t discussed with anyone else exactly what he was doing! After refusing to even speak to anyone for three weeks whilst in mourning, the Brothers then agreed to continue the process of sorting it all out.

Whilst all this was going on the decision had been made for Tina and the girls to move to Wales and rent a house as their eldest daughter was about to move up to senior school and Tina was insistent on her starting on the first day of term with all the other kids rather than turning up halfway through the year. Phil agreed, somewhat reluctantly with this, as it meant they were spending more money that they didn’t really have. He moved in with his mother in St. Albans so she could look after their two dogs whilst he was at work. The rented property didn’t allow pets. The house sale continued to drag on into early autumn with no sign of moving forward despite almost daily phone calls to solicitors.

Then out of the blue the owner of the rented property phoned Tina up to say that they now had permanent tenants for the property and so she and the girls needed to move out. The problem here was that this was on a Wednesday and they had to leave that Friday, with 2 days’ notice! Tina went along to her weekly craft club that Thursday evening fully prepared to say good bye to her new friends as she and the girls would be going back to England as they were now homeless. This also meant the deal to buy the business was over and they would somehow have to start life all over again in Buckinghamshire, not ideal. By chance one of her new friends just happened to have an empty property and she was more than happy to let Tina rent until they managed to sell their house. Everything was now back on track, or so it seemed; except that they still needed to complete the sale of their house and for Phil to finally move to Wales.

The situation became desperate when they realized that the mortgage offer they had was due to run out on the coming Saturday. With no choice but to assume everything would work out Phil booked the removal company on Wednesday to move him out on the Friday the day before the mortgage would be taken away. There was no possibility of extending this as with only one income to be taken into account a new mortgage offer wouldn’t be forthcoming. Somehow everything fell into place,  they exchanged on Thursday and completed on Friday so Phil moved out and travelled down to Wales. It was now October 2009.

At last, they were back together again as a family and could start their new life in Pembrokeshire.

Phil and Tina worked hard to settle into their new life at the coffee company and began to get things in order, which proved to be quite interesting as there were a number of surprises in store regarding exactly what state the company finances were really in. Undaunted they struggled on and in 2011 completed the purchase of the company from the previous owner 2 years earlier than originally planned.

Phil’s knowledge of his product, decision to sell espresso machines and business acumen gradually led to the much needed increase in business. The reputation of the company grew, and it wasn’t long before potential new clients were getting in touch to see how they could start buying coffee. Rebranding took place and the now instantly recognizable Capital Roasters logo began appearing throughout the county.

Fast forward to 2019. The business had increased so much that they had outgrown Unit 8 Kingswood Trading estate and so the search was on to find a bigger unit. No suitable buildings were available and so the decision was taken to build their own purpose-built factory, all they needed was some land. By chance the Welsh Government owned some parcels of land in Pembroke Dock and put 2 up for sale. Knowing that they needed to move quickly one of the sites was identified as being suitable and negotiations started to complete the purchase.

A local builder who they had used to build a garage alongside the house they had recently moved into agreed to take on the project and plans for the new factory were drawn up and submitted for approval. As is ever the case with local government nothing happens quickly, but eventually the land was bought and with plans approved, work commenced in early 2020. Then Covid appeared and everything got that much more complicated and expensive. Funding the build out of their own pockets led to more than a few sleepless nights, especially when budgets seemed to increase daily, but you might have gathered by now that Phil is nothing if not determined!

Building progressed slowly but by August 2022 the company was finally able to move into its new purpose-built home. You might think that Phil would sit back and be happy with this but anyone who knows him would know that this simply wouldn’t be the case. He immediately started drawing up plans for a visitor center, shop and tasting café to help promote the business and share his passion for coffee.

The fact that you are standing here reading this will tell you that his dream has at last been realized and he can finally take his foot off the gas and enjoy his achievement.

You now know the story of “Philthebeans”!

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