200 Degrees Opens Third Coffee Shop

After selling more than 300,000 cups of coffee in Nottingham since opening almost two years ago, café chain 200 Degrees has now expanded outside the city by opening a Birmingham branch.

The independent company, which also has a site in Meadow Lane where it roasts its own coffee, hopes to take advantage of the emerging coffee scene in the "Second City" after investing £250,000 in the new shop, which opened earlier this month.

It is based in the old Grand Hotel, in Colmore Row, which is undergoing a major £40m refurbishment, and sits alongside other independent businesses.

The business was founded by university friends Rob Darby and Tom Vincent in 2012 and followed up its flagship Flying Horse Walk shop – which opened in October 2014 – with a 45-seat café in Carrington Street, close to Nottingham Railway Station, in June.

Mr Darby said: "There's an emerging coffee scene in Birmingham with a large population and footfall.

"Birmingham is booming, with a lot of building work going on and even the locals say it's changed a lot in the past couple of years.

"Our shop is three minutes' walk from New Street railway station.

"It's a big and exciting move and in the short period we've been open, it's already been really well received and trading at a higher level than the Flying Horse Walk branch.

"We've dipped our toe into the wider world now and while the scale and size of the investment is more than we've done before, because we've got a great team it means it's not as scary as it might have been."

200 Degrees agreed a 10-year lease at the historic building and will pay a £90,000 annual rent to owner Hortons' Estates, after a deal overseen by Ben Tebbutt, of commercial property agency FHP.

The Birmingham coffee shop measures 3,000 sq ft, split between two floors, and employs 15 people.

Like the Flying Horse Walk branch, it features a 16-seat barista school and meeting room, while also serving its signature fresh ground coffee sourced from across the world.

It features four-metre high ceilings with and chandeliers, while it has been decorated in a similar style to the Nottingham outlets.

The coffee company is the latest venture for Mr Darby and Mr Vincent, who have run pubs, cocktail bars and gardening centre cafés since going into business in 1997.

They are in legal discussions to potentially open another two coffee shops in northern cities but nothing it close to being announced yet.

Mr Vincent added: "We would like to become more recognised and noted for our great coffee.

"If you look at where we've gone since 1997, we couldn't have known we'd go into coffee.

"We're focusing on local places that we can travel to and control the quality, train enough staff to run it well and keep the business to a size we're proud of."