Customer Showcase: Blend, Birchington

In the summer of last year, Garage Coffee was approached by Niki & Tracy who were looking for a coffee supplier to help them serve great coffee in their new venture at Blend in Birchington. They came to us with a passion for serving high quality produce and we were delighted to get involved. Since opening, they have built a fantastic customer base and have shown a real enthusiasm for serving great coffee to the population of Birchington.

Niki, Co-owner of Blend, said “2016 was the year of a new venture for myself and my good friend, Tracy. What started as a pipe dream became reality on August 30th when we took over and began running our own coffee shop! Whilst ‘Blend’ existed as a 'ticking over' Coffee shop; Tracy and I had our own ideas and high standards which we wanted to bring together.

We both knew we wanted to stand out with our coffee and wanted it to be high quality and local. Having searched through some companies on the internet I discovered Garage Coffee on the outskirts of Canterbury and was immediately intrigued. Our initial reply from Luke was positive and meeting up with him confirmed my positivity in finding our Coffee Guru.

Being slight novices in the Coffee industry, Tracy and I feel we have great support from Luke and he is always willing to help and give advice on our coffee needs. The day before we opened Luke was on hand to set up our coffee grinder and go over everything with us, he has recently come in to train other members of our team. We continue to have compliments on our coffee, luckily on occasions when Luke has been in the shop with us, so he can hear for himself.

In our first 5 months of trading we have been constantly amazed at the loyalty of our customers. Blend is very much part of the community in our village and there is always someone to chat to. Keeping in with the community theme most of our cakes and bakes are homemade, we offer fresh fruit and cheese scones daily, homemade sausage rolls along with a variety of cakes. Our sandwiches are made up to order and we shop locally from the village using Wale's Butchers and Monty's Greengrocers.

Tracy and I are loving our new venture and are lucky to have friends and family to support us along with local business and, of course, our Coffee Guru.”

For more information about Blend, check out their Facebook & Twitter pages or drop in and say hi to Niki & Tracy at Blend, 72 Station Road, Birchington, CT7 9RA.