Coffee Republic hungry for success
LOOKING and feeling like forlorn throwbacks to the City boom at the fag end of the 1980s, Corney & Barrow and Davy's Wine Bar glare at each other across Broadgate's Exchange Square, soulless in spirit and patronage.
The unlucky 13 lunchtime patrons at Corney's look a wan lot, not a flute of champagne in sight. But in a visual tale of two cities, a Moet cork-pop towards the corner of the square is a new joint, jumping with four times the number of customers packed into a similar square footage.
This is Republic Deli, the new big idea being piloted with the aim of saving the bacon of heavily loss-making Coffee Republic,
Founded in 1995 by banker brother and lawyer sister Bobby and Sahar Hashemi, Coffee Republic is back in the day-to-day hands of Bobby after a disastrous overexpansion which last year saw it rack up losses of some £10m.
He has already courted headlines by pledging to chuck out the sofas - the cafe concept immortalised by the Central Perk set of the Friends sitcom. And in so doing, ejecting the low-spending denizens chugging through half a dozen Marlboro Lights while nursing a small skinny latte for the best part of an hour.
Yet the 'big' idea of Republic Deli is nothing less prosaic than the introduction of the made-to-order sandwich. He is in the process of cutting the Coffee Republic estate from more than 100 last year to just 50 core, profitable sites. And in time, those 50 will get a makeover into Republic Delis.
Crowded out of a crowded coffee house market by the marketing spend of Starbucks and the quality of one-time would-be buyer Caffe Nero, the plan now is to meld a top-notch espresso-cappuccino-latte offering with a fast-paced, US-style deli-bar putting the fresh ingredients of your choice in bagels, on focaccia or plain old bread.
'We looked at the US and spoke to our customers,' says Bobby Hashemi. 'What was decided was to go for a stronger food offering but one that differentiates itself from those multiples offering preprepared wedge sandwiches or the mom-and-pop operation where you are not sure about the quality.'
He has got brokers to arrange or underwrite £1.75m to finance conversion of its outlets. That includes new money from 27% investor Julian Richer, the hi-fi multi-millionaire, and a handful of other retail entrepreneurs including, it is thought, French Connection founder Stephen Marks.
