A former north-east bank building is to get a new lease of life as a café as local business Symposium Coffee celebrates a major milestone.
Back in April the family run firm applied to Aberdeenshire Council seeking permission to change the use of the former Bank of Scotland branch on Seafield Street in Portsoy.
Local authority planners approved the application last month and work has been ongoing to prepare the new coffee house for opening.
Symposium Coffee director Paul Haggath said the new café is “a big celebration” as it marks the firm’s 10th location – a goal that had been in mind since the business started up in 2005.
Paul said everyone at the firm was “absolutely delighted” to have reached the 10 shop goal and added: “Portsoy is an absolutely beautiful and lovely village, and the café is in the perfect location on the main street.
“While travelling from each shop myself and my wife Wendy are always on the lookout for new locations. We saw the Portsoy building in March, contacted the landlord and signed the lease in April.”
The category B listed building’s former banking hall and adjacent offices have been transformed into an open plan café featuring a food preparation space, servery and seating area.
The facility will also have a store room and two toilets.
Paul explained that some features including facings and doors needed replaced but have been done “like for like to keep the character of the building”.
Building back after Covid
The new café comes after a tough year for Symposium Coffee as Paul revealed the coronavirus pandemic had a “massive impact” on the business.
He explained: “At the time of the first lockdown we had eight locations that all had to be closed down. Any perishable food that we had we donated to charitable causes to ensure nothing went to waste and we had 56 employees that we had to ensure we looked after.
“We had a lot on our shoulders but we had the strong faith that God will look after us and if bad things happened that it will be OK.
“We had signed our ninth lease in Elgin just six weeks before Covid hit but luckily we had a click and collect app that we used to keep the business running.”
Paul and Wendy’s daughters Ellie, 20, and Olivia, 17, helped out by allowing customers to collect their orders from the Peterhead Asda site however as time went on one member of staff was permitted to work from each location.
Paul said: “Furlough was massive for us and helped us to retain all of our staff, we have taken on a further ten members of staff since lockdown was lifted.
“Our micro roastery in Peterhead, Viewmount Roastery, opened two years ago and helped to push our online sales.”
The new Portsoy coffee shop will have a soft opening this Friday.