LYMM brothers Chris and Stephen Shelmerdine opened The Coffee House in Lymm eight years ago and now own five sites with two more set to open in the next six months.
They were were in their early twenties when they opened The Coffee House in their hometown, Lymm, in 2011.
“We set out to change the way people eat, drink, and relax in their own community,” said Chris.
After spending three years focused on serving locals good products in great settings, Chris and Stephen started expanding.
“We opened our second site in Sale in 2014, a third in Partington in 2015, and a fourth in Widnes in 2017.”
But, this was just the start, as the brothers are currently in the middle of their most ambitious expansion to date: opening three sites in just six months.
“We opened our fifth site in Huyton in December and now we’re gearing up for our biggest opening yet in Northwich this month,” says Chris.
“We’ll give ourselves a couple of months to settle in there before opening our third and final site of the year in Bootle in May. It’s always been our ambition to grow a group of Coffee Houses.”
The secret to doing so? The right technology, staff, and produce.
“It’s all about making everything as convenient as possible as soon as customers walk through our doors.”
“We use iZettle in all of our sites to accept card payments, as we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to pay in whatever way they prefer – whether that’s using cash, chip and pin or contactless.”
“iZettle allows us to make decisions based on data. By logging into the backend we can monitor our sales in real time, no matter where we are.”
The brothers also credit their talented team for helping them provide a high-level of service.
“At the moment we employ 75 local people and we expect that to have doubled to 150 by the time we’ve finished this year’s expansion!”
It’s been a busy few months for the brothers but things show no signs of slowing down.
“Each year we plan to move faster and better, bringing more jobs to the area while continuing to serve delicious food and drinks!”
