Why I gave up a job in IT to run a cafe, art gallery, coffee roastery and eco refill shop in Saltaire

“Fast forward a few years and I was working for a large corporate playing games of email ping pong and making powerpoint slides."

Joel decied to start roasting his own coffee as a bit of a hobby.

"I picked up a small 200g roaster and began to roast at home after work, ordering small batches of green beans and eventually running a few pop up pour over cafes from our front room for the annual Saltaire Festival, as well as local farmers markets.”

A few years later he bought a bigger coffee roaster and Jolly Bean was born.

"We sorted our first proper bags and labels, and we began to source high scoring speciality lots from ethical sourcing partners, storing pallets of coffee at my parents in Manchester and making a weekly trip on the M62 after work from Yorkshire and back to get beans to roast.”

Then one day in 2018 he got off the train home from work and noticed a closing down sign on one of the local high street’s beautiful old Victorian shops.

"I’d just come back from holiday to an Inbox full of emails and then got off the train and saw this shop close to the station opposite Salts Mill was up for rent.

"I sent an email and a few weeks later we were planning our plastic-free recycling shop, cafe and art gallery. A handful of excitedly rushed emails and an application form later, and we had the keys to what’s now become Giddy Arts.”

Joel gave up the rat race, learnt how to shop fit and with his partner opened Giddy Arts which has since become something of a community hub.

“We have a little speciality coffee bar in the shop, serving commuters as they head to and from the station, alongside arts, crafts, and a reduced waste general store,” he says.

"It wasn’t really planned it was a shot in the dark. My partner is a keen baker and she loved the idea of having a cafe where we could sell the things she bakes and serve the coffee I roast.”

Joel liked the idea of supporting the local Saltaire Arts community and he works with other independent makers and artists to bring customers a carefully curated mix of home wares, jewellery, prints and art.

The ethics behind Jolly Bean Coffee Roasters – which he still runs – is evident throughout Giddy Arts.

Since opening they have saved somewhere between 90,000 to 100,000 pieces of plastic – a statistic Joel is clearly proud of.

"Years ago I worked for ASDA and Walmart and the amount of plastic waste the supermarkets produce is crazy,” he says.

“If you want to shop plastic-free there should be an option to do so but it’s just not that easy.”

The refill shop is full of plastic free pay as you weigh wholefoods, cupboard essentials, as well as liquid refills for household cleaning, laundry and bath and shower gels.

But Joel is very well aware of the challenges facing eco refill businesses.

"There is no money in the refilling business and a lot of places have gone by the wayside because of this. We can continue to offer it as we have the cafe and the gallery, sadly it wouldn’t be viable without them,” says Joel, who currently employs eight part-time staff.

"We have grown and grown since we first opened and are now over two floors and are really part of the Saltaire community.”

They hold artists workshops and craft nights making everything from wooden bunting to neon signs. As well as doing his bit for the environment Joel likes to give something back.

During Covid Giddy Arts raised £2,500 for local charity, Abigail Housing when they went online with their refill business when lockdowns forced them to close the cafe and shop.

"We sold so much flour and yeast during Covid you wouldn’t believe it,” says Joel.

“I really think it helped convert some people to plastic-free who stayed with us once we reopened.”

Last year they also raised £480 for the CURE children’s hospital in Uganda where they source some of their coffee beans.

When not in Giddy Arts – where he spends most of his time on the admin side of things now – Joel can be found at Jolly Bean indulging his passion for coffee.

“We’ve upgraded our roaster to ‘Tony’, our larger and more advanced roaster from Coffee Tech, and have been working on expanding our range and bean sourcing,” he explains.

"I am passionate about the ethical side of things and knowing about plant to cup but we are and also appeal to coffee nerds and I love experimenting with different combinations. We have one where we fermented the coffee with strawberries”

Joel and Jolly Bean also collaborate with other producers and have recently created Cafe Stout, a coffee and tequila 7 % beer with Salt brewery which is in Tesco.

Giddy Arts is much more than just a shop, art gallery and cafe it is part of the infrastructure of the Saltaire community.

"We are really lucky in Saltaire, we have so much going on in the High Street. We all work together.” So does he miss the cut and thrust of corporate life?

“I miss the team that I worked with and going for a drink after work. But that’s about it – although I probably have even more emails now than I did then.”

https://www.giddyarts.co.uk

https://www.jollybeanroastery.co.uk/