Torta: Popular Findhorn coffee shop to close its doors

The exhausted owner of a popular Findhorn business has said rising costs and a tough winter have forced her to close her coffee shop.

Katie Urquhart has been running Torta Findhorn since 2022 but the revelation that the price of her lease was to double saw her faced with a ‘major problem’.

Combined with a “quiet” winter that meant a lean few months for takings, it is a problem that has proved insurmountable.

Now, the coffee house is closing its doors on Friday.

Kaitlin does, however, plan to continue working at her business from home, called Torta by Katalin.

And she intends to spend more time with her husband and two children after the closure – which she said she struggled to do while running the cafe.

The cafe sits next to the Royal Findhorn Yacht Club. Image: Jason Hedges/DC Thomson.

Katie first came to the area from Budapest to study business at Moray College.

In April 2020, just as Scotland was settling in to its first lockdown, she launched a patisserie business from her Moray home.

She eventually started the new venture Torta cafe – which means Hungarian for cake – in 2022.

Preparing for that opening, she told the Press and Journal: “It’s going to be very different to anything you’ve seen in Findhorn before.

“It will be as much a patisserie as a coffee shop – though that depends on how busy it’ll be.”

Torta owner took ‘really hard’ decision to close coffee shop

Making that dream a reality has been tough.

And, as she calls time on the cafe, Katie admits the past three years have been “incredibly difficult” for her.

The cafe has made almost all of its produce from scratch, – a time-consuming feat that meant she was baking seven days a week.

Katie said: “I can’t personally do this anymore to my family.

“It was just taking my entire life up and I have young kids as well.

“Because of the staffing situation, I also had to take on quite a lot of shifts in the past three years.

“So basically I’m never home.”

While the first two years were good for Katie, times have been tough recently in a community with a huge number of seasonal visitors. Image: Jason Hedges/DC Thomson

Were that not enough, rising costs have put a huge burden on the cafe and, like many business owners, Katie has been forced to accept it is no longer financially viable.

She said the cost of her lease had “more than doubled” in price.

Katie also had to make the difficult decision at the end of last year to downsize her staff – leaving only two core staff members.

‘Tough’ winter season meant low footfall

“The coffee shop operates in a village that has hardly any inhabitants during the winter season,” Katie said.

“We have seen a definite drop in footfall this year and that’s why it was a really hard decision.

“My first winter was okay and the second one was very similar, but this third one was absolutely dreadful.

“We’d hardly have any customers during the whole of December.

“To put it into perspective, we had a six-hour day where we finished with just £7 in the till.”

She added that Findhorn now does not have a regular bus service, which makes it more difficult to get support from locals who do not drive.

Katie has, however, been stunned by the messages of support following the closure announcement on Facebook, describing it as a “shock” and “absolutely amazing”.