The couple who met on Match.com are making the past their future

When Kay and Matt Riley celebrate their first wedding anniversary this week it will be in a different way to most couples.

Saturday July 16 sees the opening of Riley’s & Co - the couple’s vintage emporium and tea room in Sheffield’s Antique Quarter and the realisation of their dream.

“We will be spending our wedding anniversary putting the finishing touches to Riley’s & Co, probably sleeping there on an airbed,” says Kay. The couple met through Match.com a few years ago but after a few of dates Matt became ill and they lost touch. Then, on July 15 two years ago Kay was clearing the memory on her mobile phone and came across Matt’s number and decided to send him a text.

“I always had a feeling that I would see Kay again and when the text came form her we met up I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” says Matt.

The couple were married a year after Kay sent the text.

“We were expecting people to say it was all too quick but when people see us together they realise that we are just right for each other,” says Kay who has two children Abigail 16 and Sam, four.

The couple both loved vintage Matt used to be a Mod but after he suffered something of a breakdown her decided he no longer wanted to stand out. But meeting Kay again changed all that,

Kay has always loved all things vintage dressing in her favourite 1950s styles at the weekends.

Then a few years ago she decided to embrace her passion full time.

“I work in telecommunications and was working in this massive office where everyone dressed in black and looked the same,” says Kay.

“I was wearing my 1950s dresses and petticoats at the weekends and I realised that I was just playing dress up and decided there and then I wasn’t going to wear anything else. People do look at you sometimes but not so much in Sheffield there is a big vintage movement.”

When Matt and Kay met up again Matt was completing a degree in Food and Nutrition having previously had a career in property development.

“I used to play a lot of rugby and it played havoc with my body and so I realised I needed to retrain in something less physically demanding. I love food and cooking and had always wanted to do a degree but never got the chance. Once I’d graduated with a 2:1 I thought I’d end up working in a food production factory somewhere although my dream had been to pen my own cafe.”

And that’s when he met Kay. With her love of vintage and upcycling and Matt’s food and hospitality knowledge, they came up with the idea of one day opening a crafty cafe.

“We spend most of our weekend upcycling old furniture and we would talk about one day opening our own business,” says Kay, who makes or adapts a lot of her 1950s clothes herself. “I was always pretty creative but ended up working in an office and just got stuck there. My job was a mediator sorting out other people’s mistakes so I know how important customer service is.

They started to look for premises to make their dream a reality.

“We looked at buying a business, but that would have been someone else’s dream not our own,” says Kay.

“We thought if we could get an old building with lots of character and using Matt’s skills convert it into what we wanted it would be best.”
They came across a former pattern manufacturers’ building what had been empty for two years and we about to be developed.

“They were planning to turn it into different units and we thought we’d take one The we heard the landlord say he was looking at turning the one next to us into a garage - we knew then it just wouldn’t work and so I said to Matt ‘Why don’t we take it all and develop it ourselves.’”

They have spent the last year converting the single storey building into a vintage emporium. They have already leased all the space to 14 different dealers and Friday will see them opening their own business Riley’s & Co. “The ‘&Co’ is the rest of our family,” says Kay. “We want this to be legacy for them. Abigail and her friends will work here as well.”

Kay had originally planned to continue working as a consumer services consultant but it depends how busy they become.

At the heart of Riley’s & Co. is the concept of upcycling and creative reuse of vintage artefacts and furniture. Everything in the tearoom is for sale including the tea cups and chairs which came out of a hairdresser’s salon.

“I think people are turning their back on mass produced furniture where everyone ended up having virtually the same chair from Ikea,” says Kay. “I think people want something individual. Either something they can buy and put their own stamp on or something we have done ourselves. They also have an outside area and the couple’s plan is to become a wedding venue for small vintage inspired weddings similar to their own last year.

“Vintage is just still so big, everyone wants mismatched crockery and we are happy to offer them a vintage event for their special day,” says Kay adding that Riley’s & Co will also offer courses to help people learn about upcycling.

The couple believe fate bought them together and is now helping their dream become a reality.

“Things haven’t always gone right, but we learn from them and in the end something better has come out of it. We do feel that the powers that be are smiling on us.”

For more information visit www.facebook.com/RileysandCo