JobsWorth

Caffeine, Cult and Creativity

• John Hawker • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to walk away from a stable 14-year career and jump headfirst into the world of entrepreneurship? Andy Yates did just that, and in our latest podcast episode, he shares the remarkable story of his transformation from a heating engineer to the proud owner of Cult Coffee and Tattoos. This conversation is a vivid illustration of the power of self-belief and the reality of following your passion's. 

Navigating life after school can be daunting, something we explore as Andy recounts his experience of growing up in London and making the jump from education into the workforce. Andy and I discuss the crucial role of familial support, the impact of upbringing on career paths, and the importance of hard work and resilience. We also uncover the reality of stepping away from a long-term career to embrace the uncertainties and excitement of starting a new venture.

As we wrap up, Andy and I talk about the never ending challenge of achieving work life balance and the unpredictable nature of growing a business, especially in a market as saturated as the coffee industry. He opens up about the challenges of the pandemic, the essence of community collaboration in Leigh on Sea, and the inspiration behind the straightforward yet impactful name 'Cult'. These stories  make for an episode that's not just about coffee, but about pursuing your dreams. Join us for an episode that promises to energize not only your mind but perhaps your entrepreneurial spirit as well.

Cult Coffee and Tattoos - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cultcoffeeandtattoos

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Contact me using hello@jobs-worth.com

John Hawker:

You're a year old in me, aren't you? So I'm 37. What? You're not older than me? Fucking hell, man. I mean, look, I've got a lot of grey. You'd be willing Klein to think that, but I think you might be 38, right?

Andy Yates:

Yeah, 38.

John Hawker:

Jobs Worth, season 2, episode 4 Caffeine, cult and Creativity. Welcome to Episode 4, jobs Worth, season 2. This week I sit down with Andy Yates, owner of Leon C based coffee shop, cult, coffee and tattoos. Andy and I started our businesses within six months or so of each other. We met for the first time when his coffee shop doubled up as a photography studio for my LinkedIn headshots, and all it cost me was the price of a skinny latte. It's been over five years since Andy opened the doors to what has become one of the most iconic spots in the area, and whilst he's had plenty of success so far, it feels like he's just getting started.

John Hawker:

Andy's experience at school and his short stint at sixth form will resonate with a lot of you, as will his pursuit of finding a steady job as a teenager to start getting money in the bank without any clear idea what he wanted to do when he grew up. We discuss how he ultimately landed a job, after some of the worst interview prep I've ever heard of. That would offer him a stable living for over 14 years as a heating engineer before he chucked it all in to follow his true passion Coffee. The birth of cult saw Andy giving an opportunity to showcase his creativity and style, and it was his unparalleled determination and self belief that drove him on to create a business that is as original as it is successful. We shine a light on Andy's DIY skills, talked to him about embracing fatherhood, his future plans for the cult brand, and get an insight into his refreshing take on customer service.

John Hawker:

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the guy in charge of keeping Leon C caffeinated and the pound for pound strongest bloke in the gym Unverified Andy Yates. Right, andy, thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. No, you're very welcome, mate, the first.

John Hawker:

I've been really looking forward to this one, for a number of reasons and we'll get into the questions that I've got lined up for you as well, but we are going to start with the opening tradition on the podcast, which is the opening question. So when you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Andy Yates:

I didn't know, I wanted to. Okay, never, never never, never been one of them kids. That was like, right, I want this to do this, I want to do that. I just never, really. I don't know, I didn't really think like that. I suppose when I was at school. So yeah, 16, because obviously when, when we went to school, 16, you didn't have to stay on, did you know? So now I think kids have to stay to 18.

John Hawker:

18.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, so when we were kids, 16, coming to like what do you do? Because I didn't know. So I said I want sixth form for a bit done a year and just have one in them days in there. And then I remember the head teacher coming into the thing and he must have said something to me. I went off and I just walked out and then my pal came running after me behind you, like are you leaving? I was like, if it's hate for me.

Andy Yates:

I've done a year I've done enjoy this. He's like, let's go, and we both just left together.

John Hawker:

Really.

Andy Yates:

I didn't know at the time I was. I had a part time job in Sainsbury's just because I need to make some money, so I just kind of went there full time for a bit.

John Hawker:

Where did you grow up, Andy Tottenham?

Andy Yates:

Tottenham.

John Hawker:

Okay, yeah, so right. So what was that experience? So talk, talk me through what. And at school age, andy, was like school Was you? Were you particularly, even though you didn't necessarily have these sort of dreams. I've had people say that that's a common one, but you've got none of those aspirations. But were you academic at school? I?

Andy Yates:

didn't enjoy school that much. I hated school, but things didn't come to me that well. The only things when I was at school that I loved doing was like construction and art.

John Hawker:

There were only things I was good at.

Andy Yates:

Art is the only thing I got an, a star in art. Everything else I got season D's in.

Andy Yates:

So that's the only thing that I kind of like excelled in. I think I'm quite creative now as well and I really liked that side of it, but I didn't know what to like, as if, when it comes to school, I was a bit. I was very good at being like a bit of a copy artist. If you give me a picture, I went draw that. I could be like all right, cool, I could draw that really well. But then at a time I was a bit like it's no cool for like a copy artist. I mean I can't just be doing that and stuff like that. And then I was. I really liked carpentry and when I did kind of get to the end of school I was like maybe I'll be a carpenter 20 odd years ago.

Andy Yates:

Ikea was like massive then so nobody wanted to pay money for like a bespoke wardrobe or I wanted that sort of stuff I wanted to be doing like proper carpentry like a stair, Nice good stuff, but people weren't spending money on that. Then they would like I need a wardrobe. Fuck it, I'll go to IKEA.

John Hawker:

They did go through that sort of like blew up around that time.

Andy Yates:

People still love I can. I'm not gonna feel against ideas. Got some good like if you need some stuff. But people didn't spend money on carpentries. They didn't want that sort of I don't know that luxury, I guess. So I was just like no offense at hanging doors and shit. I wanted to make stuff.

John Hawker:

It's like the real give a chance, I guess, to put the artistry into the carpentry work that you do. I've got a few friends. I'll say one in particular. I don't know if you know a guy called Chris French.

Andy Yates:

He's quite well known around here, but he lives out God.

John Hawker:

I want to say like Burnham Way now, but he's an artist he's an artist, but he just makes furniture out of wood. But his stuff is incredible and that's the kind of thing you're describing reminds me of that, and I get that. The other side of it is pretty mundane.

Andy Yates:

But I was a bit at that age. I didn't think that I could make that sort of stuff and make money from it.

John Hawker:

I think it's kind of a.

Andy Yates:

I've said when I'm older want to retire, nice house at the end of my garden. I want a workshop. Just like I just sit in there and like make whatever the fuck I want. It's just. Yeah, I enjoy making stuff like we get onto it with Colt later, but all the tables and all the stuff in there, I made all that Did you really.

John Hawker:

And then the tables.

Andy Yates:

Five years later I couldn't find tables I wanted. So I was like fuck it.

John Hawker:

Oh mate, that's awesome.

Andy Yates:

I'll give it a go.

John Hawker:

That's brilliant, but I always like to ask what people's experience was like at school and it always leads to the next question, which is like careers guidance at school as well. Now, we went to school some time ago. I've spoken to people that went a lot longer than us ago as well, but it's always interesting. I remember career guidance for me when I got to college was just you had like very traditional routes that you went to, like most of it is pushing you down, like towards the city, or you go and learn a trade like carp and tree electrician plumber, whatever it was.

John Hawker:

Do you remember anything about any of the guidance you were getting, or were you particularly inspired by anyone for that education system?

Andy Yates:

It doesn't sound like you were. Yeah, no, nothing really. I knew I wanted to sit with my hands. Like I said, I went to sixth form just because I was like I didn't know what I wanted to do.

John Hawker:

What did you do at sixth form? I can't remember. There you go. It's bad, isn't it?

Andy Yates:

No, I look I can't remember. I literally I took some subjects just to like kind of tick the box.

John Hawker:

Yeah, you know that a bit more time.

Andy Yates:

And that's when I was in sixth form and I was like you know what? I wanted to do something with my hands and I wanted to be an electrician at first. Yep, but trying to get an apprenticeship back in. I couldn't find anything.

John Hawker:

Really.

Andy Yates:

But yeah, guidance was. I can't remember. I can't remember the school giving me much. That's cool. I went to. I don't think it's even there anymore. I'm sure that's gone now.

John Hawker:

Really.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I didn't go to. There weren't great schools. I went to primary school in Tottenham and then I went to senior school in Edmund.

John Hawker:

So pretty rough areas, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the nice Interest in places to grow up?

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah yeah, but I love London.

John Hawker:

Yeah.

Andy Yates:

Even living out here now I do. I still love London and I'm glad I was born and raised in London because I think you just you're a bit more savvy street wise.

John Hawker:

Well, you would have seen the comparison between people that have only grown up in Leon's sea at the end of the point 100%. You know it's a comfy part of the world and quite well protected around here and everything, whereas yeah.

Andy Yates:

Tottenham was a different kind of fish, but I loved it.

John Hawker:

Yeah.

Andy Yates:

I mean, I probably wouldn't want to live there now. But, it was, it was. It's what I knew as a kid. You know what I mean. My dad was from East London and it was just like he used to grind up in an, an, an, an account of the state and whatever, and it was just like I didn't we didn't really, we had our own house, we didn't even have a council house or anything like that, but it was like we used to. Just that, that was life.

John Hawker:

That's what I mean yeah, and without getting too cliche about it, they help you grow into the person you are now as well.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, definitely.

John Hawker:

Okay, so we leave school, we go sixth form. Yeah, there's quite a turnout to literally say to one of your mates here I'm leaving, and they're like oh, I'll fuck off as well.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah, it's like a bit of a mutiny.

John Hawker:

Yeah, so you leave school. I'm interested what's the reaction from your parents?

Andy Yates:

My parents are really like they, they, they, they want me to just do what I want to do Brilliant, and not that they were like yeah, yeah.

Andy Yates:

yeah, I didn't get around the book floors, but I think it was that mum, mum and dad kind of knew that they weren't one. My old man left school like really young, right, he's much older. Do you know what I mean? They didn't. They didn't really say much. I kind of in my head had gotten I wanted to get into an apprenticeship. Yeah, I just trying to find one. So just a case of yeah, mum, I've left.

John Hawker:

There you go, but it's much better to have in my this is a subjective opinion but it's much better to have parents that are going to back you and support you in doing something you're happy doing If you know, if they know you're going to college every day you're sixth form and you're just unhappy you're not getting anything from it.

Andy Yates:

It's a waste of time. I was never going to be a uni person. They I never was. It wasn't something that ever crossed my mind it. That was never going to be my route. But yeah, the folks were what it is, what it is. Then you something.

John Hawker:

So they were supporting you. Yeah, yeah, cool, okay, so okay you walk out, and then what happens next?

Andy Yates:

So I walk out, so then I kind of went to Sainsbury's. I think I done I used to do a Sunday and maybe a Wednesday night.

John Hawker:

Right, okay.

Andy Yates:

Just to earn a bit of money. Yeah, so I'm probably 17 now. I've done a year.

John Hawker:

Yeah, so you're at the level of 17. 17 now.

Andy Yates:

So I'm like right, okay.

John Hawker:

I need to find something.

Andy Yates:

So I went to an agency to try and find apprenticeship. Wanted to be an electrician.

John Hawker:

And was that just that that? I say inspiration, that drive to be an electrician, did that just come from you thinking it's a decent trade? There'll be work there, there'll be money coming in 100%. Okay, 100%, it was something.

Andy Yates:

I was like I could, I could. I don't, you don't go. I'm like I don't know what to do At the. He's retired now. At the time he worked at the airport.

John Hawker:

Right, he's the catered airplane. Oh really, that's what he done. That's what he done we lived in Tottenham.

Andy Yates:

He worked at Heathrow. He used to commute every day. He done some shit hours.

John Hawker:

I was gonna say yeah, wow.

Andy Yates:

But we're working class family. He had to do what he had to do to provide Like he was a full-time earner. Mum used to be a dinner lady but I got an older sister who's in a wheelchair Mum's her. It was her full-time carer. So Mum couldn't go to work Dad had to do the work, so if there's money to be made, he's gonna fucking make it.

John Hawker:

So he's a good example of that work ethic that you knew you needed. You need to provide. God did it, it doesn't matter.

Andy Yates:

I got to get up at two in the morning to drive to the airport to do a shift to work. All right, I'll do it. There's not a fucking no. He probably didn't enjoy it. He wanted to do it, but he's got two kids and a wife and he's the support. You know what I mean. Like I said, I've got sisters in a wheelchair. Mum looks after her, Does a little bit of work. Dinner lady in that.

John Hawker:

So he had to do it. Okay, yeah, cool. I didn't know if there was a connection there between doing a trade like that would fall into that bracket of.

Andy Yates:

No, he's not really ever been one for, not that he's not hands-on, because he is, but he's not been one to like. Push that onto me, yeah, yeah, got you Like. I said work class background. It's always a bit like learn a trade. So it's a good thing to have on the belt, do you?

John Hawker:

know what I mean.

Andy Yates:

So I think it was more of that. They were like, yeah, push it. If you can get one, then happy days, because we know, like you said, you're always gonna need a spark, you're always gonna need plumbers, you're gonna need heat and engineers.

John Hawker:

You're gonna need all that sort of stuff, and usually it's short notice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll pay for that as well.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah so, yeah, you went to these agencies. So I went to Sainsbury's, I went to them, I went like I need some more hours. At the minute I've got nothing. They're like, yeah, cool. So they gave me some more hours. So I kind of went full-time-ish there while looking for an apprenticeship, signed up for agencies, found an apprenticeship mechanical engineering. So I was a bit like, oh, was this in town? So I kind of went along for an interview, ended up being in a factory, ended up being like they done loads of car parts and stuff like that, but ended up like they told me how to turn on a lathe.

John Hawker:

So I was doing all that sort of stuff.

Andy Yates:

So I'm like all right, this is cool. So I've been there for about six months. I went to like Ford factory in Waos and stuff like that. I was like this is all right, this is all right. But they taught me something and then left me Right Slave labor. Then yeah, they're like this guy's knocking this shit out.

John Hawker:

Production life too.

Andy Yates:

I was like this guy and I was a bit like I don't want to be in a factory for the rest of my life.

John Hawker:

I don't want to be doing this, this is, this isn't.

Andy Yates:

I don't want this life for me. So then I kind of went to my boss. I went to say what, like you've taught me something, you've left me. I said I'm a bit and he went fucking mental with me.

John Hawker:

Did he really Like?

Andy Yates:

what I've done. This I'm like whoa All right.

John Hawker:

So that reaction, reaction like that just was completely unexpected from you.

Andy Yates:

This is really weird. So then I was like all right, whatever, I came from a notice, walked out and he called me in his office the next day and I was like all right, he's like I need to apologize for yesterday. He was like I'm shocked, you're kind of he goes, but I'm also gutted because you're a really good worker. I'm like you fucking should have treated me better, didn't you?

John Hawker:

Do you know?

Andy Yates:

what I mean. He treats me as if he's letting me leave me, so he was in it. I think he was just like a bit.

John Hawker:

That's a lesson in itself, isn't it? I think that's a lesson more broadly for anyone that's not someone that's working under him.

Andy Yates:

You've got to support him. You've got to continue.

John Hawker:

There's this I don't know, this feeling that I've invested in someone, I've done you a favor, so now you owe me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got to be loyal because I've given you a shot or whatever that looks like, and that's a perfect example of that, I think.

Andy Yates:

So then I left that and then I'm back to square one. So I go back to St Louis again. Got some more hours for me. Yeah, here you go. So they do that Once again. Signed up to agencies. Didn't really hear a lot. And I get a letter through the post Worcester Bosch apprenticeship. I'm like, oh sweet, look at it. Oh, you've got to come to Rochford.

Andy Yates:

So it's not a million miles away, St Kent, just from like. But I'm like, I drive, I'm driving anyway. But I'm like oh shit, Do I work in Rochford? Didn't look at anything, I didn't think, so I ring them up. I went oh, I just got this through the post, sort of thing. I didn't apply for this job.

Andy Yates:

So, I rings them up. I'm like I got this through the post. Would I be working in Rochford? They're like, oh no, if you get the job, you get qualified, you'll be out of an engineer. All right, cool, fuck it, I'll go for it. Looking back in, I didn't do no research. Who was the Bosch? I didn't know what they'd done, so I've gone. It's really bad. I've gone into this interview and there's me. There's loads of these other lads, there's tables, about 20 of us sitting down and then master them. They come into all of us and we're like all right, guys, one of you hasn't done an application for them. I'm like, yeah, that's me, because I didn't even apply for this job, whatever. So I filled this thing out and then they put sit us still down and they put a video on of what was the Bosch do. So I'm sitting. I'm like I don't know what it.

John Hawker:

I'd literally learning as you're sat there.

Andy Yates:

I had no idea what they'd done. I'm like, how bad is that Do?

John Hawker:

you know what I mean? It could be the advice that I'd give someone going into the environment. No, no, no.

Andy Yates:

So I've gone into this interview. So I'm sitting there watching her going oh, they make boilers. I'm like, oh shit, okay then Sweet. So then I've done, you do your basic maths and English test past that went for an interview with my the manager then, who was my manager when I left the firm, sat down with him, had the most like relaxed interview ever. Yeah, Him and his senior technician at the time. We didn't really talk about work, he just spoke about this, that and the other. I played hockey at the time, his daughter's played hockey, so it was a bit like oh. Then I always vividly remember that he's like engineer was like oh yeah, I've just been traveling. I'm like, I mean, I think of you.

John Hawker:

This is what it feels like to have a proper job in a field. What is going on?

Andy Yates:

And I'm like good thing I didn't even fucking revise this. So anyway. So I think, they wanted two apprentices for the thing and I got offered the job and I was like what?

John Hawker:

That's quite a selection process, then. So you were talking about a room of 20 people, and then so is it was I'm thinking squid game in my head, but probably didn't go through that process. You've gone from 20 down to two on the day and then you selected from that.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, they picked two of us.

John Hawker:

Two of us were going through, so the 20 of us were there and then interviewed whoever.

Andy Yates:

If you've passed it, they interviewed X amount of us I can't remember how it was and then they wanted two apprentices, so they picked two of us. So what was really nice for me is that they kind of picked me on me as a person.

John Hawker:

Because I didn't know if I called.

Andy Yates:

I hadn't done anything. I work in Sainsbury, you know what I mean I left a fucking six or more for a year. I didn't have fuck all. So it was nice that they took me on that merit and then, yeah, I got the job. It was apprentice for two years. Become an engineer, become a senior engineer. I was there for 14 years.

John Hawker:

So it was the bus that you were working for for all of that time. Yeah all that time. So what's the difference then? First off, it sounds like the initial impression they made on you was more about you as a person which probably I don't know it kind of jails you in a little quicker, doesn't it? But what keeps you there to finish that apprenticeship when you've gone through, let's say, a couple of cycles? Of trying stuff. What was it specifically about that?

Andy Yates:

If you can think back, to that point, staying at the company, yeah staying there Like completing the apprenticeship in itself.

John Hawker:

Why it was a two year apprenticeship and it was.

Andy Yates:

There was a group of us, lazer, I think there was 10 of us. So we're scouted from all over the country. So you've got. So what's the bosses all over the country.

John Hawker:

Right.

Andy Yates:

So they've taken. They've taken 10 apprentices, I think, on that year for us a lot Two lads from Scotland and the rest of us all from England and it's like we're scattered everywhere. So we used to go to college in Dudley in the Birmingham. So we used to go for college two weeks at a time. So they used to pay for us to stay in a hotel. They'd pay for our food every night. We'd stay up there. We'd go up on a Sunday night. We'd then do a week of college, come home on a Friday afternoon, then drive back up on a Sunday and have two week blocks and it was just. It was a fucking brilliant time. When I look back at it now I'm like I'm learning something here. But I've got these lads. Did we go out and have a drink and everything Can just have a? It was just brilliant While learning something. And then the other time in between the college I was then in a van with a mentor.

Andy Yates:

We went around to people's houses, fixed boilers, serviced them and then just went home, and it was quite when we first started it was like a really nice cushy little job really. You'd get your jobs. It was job or not. So you get your jobs, you get them done, you go home.

John Hawker:

Oh, nice yeah.

Andy Yates:

So if you get a couple of quick ones, you're in and out and you're like oh make up some nice time here, and then a lot more things kind of came in as it went along. They were really watching everyone, which they do now, which I get Like regulation and client stuff.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, you get to tap in and tap out of jobs. They know when you're if you're finishing early, they're gonna throw another job in which I get it. They want to get their money out of you and they want you to work. But when you first signed up, you're like I'm finishing at two o'clock.

John Hawker:

This is like this is a touch. It's lovely. It reminds me of a like I've mentioned it a couple of times I used to do scaffolding Right and it reminds me very much of that way of working, Like first off, it was the people that I used to work with and I got introduced and exposed to some really interesting characters in that world Like. I worked from a scaffold yard out in Watford, traveling into Central London every day with some of the most interesting people I've ever met and probably will ever meet in my life.

John Hawker:

So it was the people made it interesting and I was engaged with it. The work was. I mean, it was hard graft, but it was something tangible, like same in a lot of ways. We're fixing something Like you go in, it's broken, you fix it. That's your sign of success. But yeah, if you could finish the jobs and get done and everyone's in that mindset, you're all in it together. You're like no one wants to be here any longer, let's get it done and get out again. So that sense of like camaraderie, that you have with the people you're working with.

Andy Yates:

I miss that a lot when I start working with I miss it with them. Boys and I'm still like I've been gone there left five years now. But they had their Christmas do last week. They invited me to that and stuff.

John Hawker:

Oh no, I'm sure Because.

Andy Yates:

I never got fired. Most people get fired, or whatever.

John Hawker:

They burn out or they get fired or whatever. It's a cushy job.

Andy Yates:

Once you're in there it's a good number. It's not that taxing because you're working on a boiler. It's not a lot of heavy lifting. It's a great like. If you're a little bit older, like mid 50s, or want to retire on this, like you've got 10 years, you could be doing that or whatever. I say it's a cushy little number, but at my point in my life where I'm early, early 30s, I'm like do I want to do this for the rest of my life?

John Hawker:

Yeah. So when did that mindset, when did those thoughts start creeping in? Do you want to be doing it for the rest of your life?

Andy Yates:

I kind of got into. Like I said, I was at the firm, I was an apprentice, then I worked my way up. I've become a senior engineer.

John Hawker:

That was as high as you can kind of go Next step is management just coming off the tools?

Andy Yates:

I'm not ready. I wasn't ready for that.

John Hawker:

I don't want to do that.

Andy Yates:

That wouldn't be where I want to go. My manager was wicked anyway. He's still the manager now. He was never going to be leaving, so his job would never be covered up.

John Hawker:

So it was literally, unless he went. Yeah, that was the route up.

Andy Yates:

I'm still here. I don't think my face kind of fits for management. Maybe I don't know if I was a bit like I don't know, I don't know, but I enjoyed being an engineer and I enjoyed doing it. But after, yeah, I wanted more, in a way.

John Hawker:

So you're 14 years in the job. So what was it? An overnight thing? Did you wake up one morning and think this is it? Or was it a process? What was the instigator for you then transitioning out of that? Might be quite a broad question to answer.

Andy Yates:

I've done a lot of traveling within the job. So I basically we lived in Tottenham, but then once I just qualified I moved out of my parents. They moved to Braintree and then I lived with them. So then I would still I still set up my London manager because there was Essex, we had their own region, london had its own one. My manager looked after London and I said to him I said well, I'm moving out with my folks. I said my plan is to come back into London at some stage, but I want to stay under you as my manager. I'll travel in if you're happy with it. It was like, yes, fine, because the way they used to work, the jobs they used to work, your travel time from your house to your first job and then your last job to your house, and that would be your hours, so you'd get paid for traveling home.

Andy Yates:

Oh right, okay, it was brilliant that was really good, but I used to give them half an hour because I lived half an hour out of the region, I mean and traveling for me just really took its toll and I was sitting in that van for hours a day and I'm just like, oh, I just yeah, it gives you time to ruminate, doesn't? It yeah, I think yeah, yeah yeah, often overthink as well.

John Hawker:

That's like whether you've got the radio on or not, with you stuck in a traffic jam, as I'm sure you would have often been, you're just sitting there thinking is it worth it? Is it worth I can imagine? Yeah, yeah.

Andy Yates:

And it was stressful. And then, when the winter came around, that was our peak months. That's when the boilers go wrong. And I said I was a senior engineer, I had a team I looked after.

Andy Yates:

My phone's constantly ringing. People are I'm fixing boilers. I've got someone ringing me going. No, I need to, andy, what's wrong with this? I'm like fuck, I'm trying to fix a boiler as well. You know what I mean. I don't know what the fuck's going on, and it's like I've got this shit call over here. Can you go and do this?

John Hawker:

I'm like I'm a senior engineer, I've got to do it. I mean I've got no much choice.

Andy Yates:

So I just got to a point where I'd done it for a long enough to be like this isn't for me anymore.

John Hawker:

I mean we'll go on to what you're doing in a second. I would have mentioned it in the introduction anyway to this. So you're going through that headspace, had this, you know, this pursuit of this, this other venture that you, that you ended up going down, that that started by this time, where, where on the chronology do we get to where you go? Fuck it, I'm giving in, I'm leaving my notice.

Andy Yates:

So probably a year before I actually left, when I got a little bit early twenties, I kind of got an idea that I'd love to have a shop. Yeah, didn't know, it was OK. Like to open the shop I'd love to I don't know what it is I had that idea of want to go and open the doors to my own shop, open it and be like this is mine.

John Hawker:

Well, I've got to ask that what? There has to be something that sparked that. Can you remember? Can you put it down to one thing no inspiration. I don't think that is. That is saying I kind of always wanted to have a clothes shop.

Andy Yates:

Ok, yeah, that was my first thing. I wanted a boutique sort of thing, because I've always I like clothes and stuff like that.

Andy Yates:

So when I was growing younger I was just a bit like I could see myself with something like that I never went through the fashions, the clothes side of it, because it was just I don't know why I just I just kind of didn't buy, always kind of saw that idea. So, yeah, probably a year before I left, I'd always started messing around with coffee and getting used to it and I was like you know what? I had a bit of money saved up because I was still living at home. To be fair, I stayed at home for a long time, yeah, but I got qualified in my job, I started earning good money, I started spending money. So I was like, let me treat my bar Nice guy, I want to buy this. And I was like I should really be saving or I should move out. But I never really liked the idea of renting.

John Hawker:

Yeah, I think there's still a. There's still a big stigma around renting, which I now think is great Because I rent now.

Andy Yates:

But my parents bought a house. I'm like I got my house.

John Hawker:

That's. That's what I need to do.

Andy Yates:

So I stayed at home. My dad won't kick me out. They were happy that I was there. So I'm like you know what? Fuck this? I'm single at the minute. I want to start saving money, so I started stacking some money for a little while. I actually went to buy a flat.

John Hawker:

Right.

Andy Yates:

I didn't get that flat. It fell through. So then I was a bit like, oh shit. So then I was like I got this money and then the idea of opening a shop came up, and then I actually went for a shop on Lee Road, but it wasn't my shop. What Can you? Can you share which shop? It was Wild Health. I. Was it really on the corner Right, ok, just before they had go. It was a barbers, before that maybe.

John Hawker:

God, I think you're right. It was like one or two. I mean one or one's a single seat of barbers Really really small.

Andy Yates:

So I remember it, just before them girls or they had it actually got it, because I remember I inquired about it, I sort of signed up and I was like, oh, this is a nice spot.

John Hawker:

Yeah.

Andy Yates:

My idea of what a coffee coffee shop side of it was. I always kind of wanted to hold in the water. It was just me slinging out coffees.

John Hawker:

Nice.

Andy Yates:

Maybe one or two chairs. People will come in and be like have a little chat with them. Yeah, there's your coffee. Get out On your way. And that's, that was my kind of my idea at the start. I don't know if I would have made money like that, because that's I don't know.

John Hawker:

But that way of working appealed to you.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to and we're probably getting to this a bit later. But that's my retirement plan is to have that.

John Hawker:

OK.

Andy Yates:

I want a little coffee shop by myself again. Yeah, just slinging out espresso. People come in as an espresso, yeah, anyway. So yeah, wild Health was the idea, right, lovely little corner plot. Nice little shop. I'm like I could put a nice bar in that coffee machine in there. Lovely Anyway, them girls have got it. And then it went on the back burner and then I moved here and then I moved to Southend.

John Hawker:

Ok, I moved to Westcliff. So what prompted that?

Andy Yates:

My partner at the time, right, ok, so she lived in Southend, yeah, so I moved here for her, yeah, and then, yeah, and then I was renting, right, so then I wasn't topping up my funds as much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm like, oh, I'm spending a lot of money here. So then I just kind of just ticked over and I carried on doing my job. I was still just fixing boilers. I'm like this is.

John Hawker:

But that time, knowing for well, you're getting to the end of that road.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I didn't want to be doing that anymore, but I'm just like what do I do? Sort of thing, yeah, and then I was living here.

John Hawker:

Nice. So the move here happened, yep. Then how did you come to where you are now, where Colt I'm going to say the full name. It is Colt Coffee and Tattoos, isn't it? Yes, a lot of people know it as Colt, yeah. So how did you come to getting in the premises that you are now? So?

Andy Yates:

as I said, I moved here for at the time. So Sam, who owns Silver Needles yeah, she was my partner at the time. And then Gelda owned Colt before us. Right, it was a coffee, it was a tattoo studio right.

Andy Yates:

So I was. I was kind of looking for shops, but not looking for shops. It was one of them. Like the idea was there, sam knew what I wanted to do and stuff like that. So I said she's got silver needles here and self-end. And then the girl that were owned. It was pride and glory for us.

John Hawker:

I remember it now, just tattoo studio. Yeah, yeah, right.

Andy Yates:

So the girl that owned that, she actually message Sam. I was like, oh, she was giving a shop up was like, oh, if you've got any space at yours to come work at yours. And then Sam was like oh, so what's happening with your shop then? And then it was really. It was.

Andy Yates:

I just always remember I remember being in Sam's shop at the time and Sam Rungby, she's like oh, where are you? I'm just about to go to the gym, because obviously the gym was right next to her shop. Yeah, I popped into the shop, see some of the guys in there. And then she's like worry. I was like I'm just, I'm just at yours, actually. And and she was like, oh, I'm just met up with. I'm a, I'm a pride and glory. I just come to me, up with me. I'm like, oh, I could. She's like you just want to pop here quick. I was like what? She's like, yeah, just just come down. So I went up, guy, and I should like, oh, yeah, so she really wants to leave. So we just like she's, in a way, she's our Sam for an interview to work at Sam's. And then there's me and Sam walking around a shop.

Andy Yates:

I saw the opportunity Okay yeah we could do some stuff with this. And then, yeah, and then, and then obviously the shop came up, we went for it. There's where something loaded on this as well did as well. But we wanted to. Obviously she had it as a tattoo studio. We wanted to keep the tattoo side but then add the coffee side right, okay, that's where the two of us, like Sam, said like do you want to go in together?

Andy Yates:

We'll do this, I'll do the tattoo. Do sort the tattoo inside, you do the coffee side. Yeah and that's how coffee that's our cult, that's our club. Yeah, yeah, and that was how cult become cult.

John Hawker:

Wow, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, sam was your partner at the time. Yeah, no longer, no longer Right. Okay, so not looking together. What? Did you have any trepidation going into it, thinking that how much Fault did you put in before you went? We're going in together. Yeah, I didn't think about. Yeah.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, you kind of don't. I got the excitement of like finally gonna have a coffee shop.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, it's what I've been wanting for a little while now and I'm finally gonna kind of do. I needed someone to give me that Kick up the arse a little bit, and that's what she done. Yeah, because she's already got a shop and whatever, and she's like done all that before where I hadn't. Yeah, this was a new realm for me as well. She's opening a coffee shop. Sorry, she's don't like putting a tax. You go into into with me and that, but she's got a Tash you do.

John Hawker:

Yeah, she knows what she's doing that's fine.

Andy Yates:

Well, it's me. I'm like I fucking fix boilers now I want to like I want people to give me money for coffee, I'm gonna make it. It's quite a turn around. Yeah, yeah, I talk about one end of spectrum to the other, so yeah, okay, no, it's.

John Hawker:

That's really interesting and I completely get. I mean, it sounds fated that you're always gonna end up on In that in that shop. I guess like the way all turned round.

Andy Yates:

It was just, it was yeah, it was mental, yeah.

John Hawker:

I'm gonna you've got if you got a son. Yeah, so you're a dad. Yeah, how old your son? Six, six, okay. So so he was born around the time you're getting into this.

Andy Yates:

So this sounds really weird now because that's right. So here's my son, right class from as my son, but he is my partner's son.

John Hawker:

Okay, so he's not mine Okay, yeah, well, by blood, okay.

Andy Yates:

He's been in my life now, for me and Anna have been together nearly Four years in summer, yeah, so. I've known him since he was two. Oh God yeah when I, when I first met him, was in a buggy. Yeah pushing him around and stuff, and then I'm the one that was. You are his dad, yeah, and then I'm the one that was there and we got him out of a buggy. He then started walking. He gets a scooter. I teach him on a scooter and it was nice first day of school, I'm there.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I mean, and I've lived that life of him. So, no matter when he was he's my son.

John Hawker:

Oh mate, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna argue that at all yeah, so I mean I've, yeah, I've got, I've got two kids of my own, and I know that that two-year-old age is when first off, it's when it becomes fun.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, it's when so many of those pivotal moments happen to.

John Hawker:

So, yeah, how much pressure Does it, additional pressure does it put on you, knowing that you've obviously got to look after your son?

Andy Yates:

as well.

John Hawker:

Oh yeah, you're bringing money in massively, because you've gone from a stable job of 14 years where you know what you're getting, pay your packet every single month, to starting a coffee shop yeah, in an area where there are also a fair few coffee shops.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah. So and heighten that even more, that me and Anna kind of got together the height of COVID right so my business is very up and down as well.

John Hawker:

Yeah.

Andy Yates:

I was a, I was a literally year old, and then COVID hit Wow. And then I met Anna in the June.

John Hawker:

Yeah, okay, 2020. Yeah, okay, so it was the.

Andy Yates:

COVID years when we like we met each other, started like talking and stuff, and it was very much Serial because we couldn't go out on dates.

John Hawker:

Yeah, because we weren't allowed out, because no, I was gonna say yeah, even meeting in the first place.

Andy Yates:

You know I mean. So when I opened coal it was I didn't take any loans out for coal. It was my amazing because I, like I said to you, I saved up X amount no money cuz I was gonna buy a flat. And then I was like I want a career change. So now I'm like you know what? I've got this money, I'm going to put this into business. And I went in with the attitude of if it doesn't work, I've only lost some money. Sounds really bad, but that was what it was. I had a good chunk of money and I'm like right, so I put that money into it. So a year in, when COVID then hit, I'm like, fuck, my savings have, I've got none. And then, yeah, then I met Anna and it's like, oh, so I've got Anna and there's a son, a new relationship.

John Hawker:

Yeah, yeah, you know, you're in mid, mid 30s relationship. She's got a son you want to try and cut. You know like, authentically come across as someone that can provide and you know you've got your shit together yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy Yates:

And on the other hand, you've got a pandemic that is affecting.

John Hawker:

I know Colt, you know Colt still had their doors open in whatever guys. You were allowed to have your doors open at that time.

John Hawker:

So you were still getting stuff going. But for a year old business. I was six months old when the pandemic hit. I was very fortunate. Recruitment suddenly shifted everything online, nothing, you know, no face to face stuff. So it was about three months where I had nothing to do and nothing that it was all still running. So I've really lucked out. But I think hospitality you know all of these I've had Dean on that owns Mingo, fuck me, I mean they were hit really hard with what they were doing.

Andy Yates:

They couldn't open at all. Thankfully, I had to close for X amount of time, but I could still be open.

John Hawker:

Yeah, remember coming up to your doors and you had the table across.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, they're coming over and handing the coffee stuff. I was serving one person at a time up and down what I think you have to do testing.

John Hawker:

Enough already to put all those things in place to run a premise like, premises like that, and then you've got to put all of the restrictions I see that to pay rent as well.

Andy Yates:

They didn't want to do that for me. I didn't get anything cut out Really. The one nice thing about that was I remember that first day of reopening and doing it from like one in, one out sort of thing, I remember having a queue on the block.

John Hawker:

And I'm like this is fucking fantastic. Yeah, this was nice.

Andy Yates:

To be fair, a lot of places didn't even bother opening because they took grants and they took whatever. But like I said to you earlier, I never opened Coal as a business. I opened Coal as a career change for myself. So I wanted to leave what I was doing before. But I wanted to make coffee, so I still wanted to be there.

Andy Yates:

So I'd lived and breathed this shop for a year At the time. I was single, so obviously Anna came along later, but I was by myself, so I was when COVID here and then I couldn't open, I was sitting there in my flat twirling my thumbs. Yeah, like what the fuck do I do? But?

John Hawker:

as you say, it sounds like the motivation was the process of actually doing the job, not just sitting there watching the money come in. Because I guess you could have done a load of other things.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

John Hawker:

So it's the process behind it. Yeah, wow, okay, I wanted to ask. We've mentioned already that the competition let's say the competition when you're looking at this is going to go out, so I hope a lot of people will be listening that don't live in.

Andy Yates:

LA. That would be helpful.

John Hawker:

Yeah, but there's a lot of coffee shops.

Andy Yates:

Yes.

John Hawker:

Let's say, a lot of places.

Andy Yates:

you can get coffee and LA on C. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, especially on Lee Road. Yes, quite a high concentration.

John Hawker:

So how much is that coming to your head? You're coming with this, like these aspirations of doing the job, making people coffee. You've got something in your mind. Do you factor in the competition or are you just so single-minded that you go? I'm doing it differently and I'm doing it a way I'm going to do it.

Andy Yates:

I'm very competitive. Okay, very competitive If I do something I want to be the best at it. Okay so I'm not gonna. I do my research, I make choice on point. No, this is why my coffee is better, not not being arrogant. I just say it, my coffee is better than everyone else. It's because I do the little thing, I do the, I do the the steps. Most people don't do them steps, hence why the coffee shit most people. But everyone in Lee has good coffee.

Andy Yates:

Yeah this is what's really frustrating me as a coffee drinker when I have a day off Not many, but when I do have a day if I want to go and have a coffee somewhere. Hmm and I got all these places. I've got cracking coffee but no one doesn't know and I had to make coffee and it's annoying For anyone listening.

John Hawker:

I have embarrassingly had to offer Andy an instant coffee, which I had anxiety about doing, but he's graciously drinking it. I'm not a kind of serve by any stretch, but I I love your coffee and I speak to a lot of people that say the same and I think you know the proofs in the pudding. Really, there's always a cure, people.

John Hawker:

Yeah whatever time I go past your shop that are waiting to be served by, I can't say that, yeah, I'm not gonna comment on the quality Of coffee anywhere else, but I can't say there's a queue down at the door or whatever it looks like for anyone else. So so you, you've gone in there with that mindset that I'm gonna have the best coffee. Yeah, yeah, the. So it sounds like. Then you're not put off by the fact that is a I don't know how many other coffee places, but there's a lot in that stretch, isn't it? So how, how else you go about differentiating your place To anyone else? Is it you thinking purely about the coffee? But then the aesthetic you mentioned that you're building?

John Hawker:

The tables yeah so you have, you all, have you got that in your mind before you set the shop up, that you know the aesthetic you want it to look like. It's got a very particular I'm gonna say the word vibe, which makes me cringe, but yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, it's evolved over the years.

Andy Yates:

Things have changed. But, like I said, them tables are. I there's tables I wanted. I couldn't find them at the time, so I just made them. Nice and they've stand stood. Well, there's time. Yeah, the bars in the window made all them and stuff. I don't know. I don't mostly that working at shop myself.

Andy Yates:

Yeah like I said, I'm pretty good hands on, I'll give it a go. Obviously had someone in putting the stud walls up and that, but decorating everything we done, or, but underneath the counter I'll be all the shelving in there and stuff. Yeah, all the shelves are up behind it. I done all that because it was just I knew I could do it. I didn't have to pay someone.

John Hawker:

There you go. Well, that's it. Cost comes into your head, doesn't it? But also, now you can take a step back. Because now you'd argue, maybe you got the money to if you started again, you'd pay someone to go through that process. Yeah actually that feeling, that yeah that pride, that you get.

Andy Yates:

I don't. If I would, though, because I'm quite controlling.

John Hawker:

Look, if you could look, I think that's a really important thing to admit. I'm the same there at their elements of my business that I can outsource being a one-man band, but I would just be. It's almost. I feel sorry for the person. I'd be paying to do it because I'd be at all. I think, yeah, I just be, yeah, yeah.

Andy Yates:

I tried that shop is a is a is a reflection of me. Yeah everything in that shop is everything I would like I would have. So that's why I think people like us and what it is, because it is a very personal touch in there and it's very it's an extension of me if I change stuff in this because I really like it and I'll get them sort of things and I'll Pay a lot of attention to a lot of the outs and even now, five years later, I'm still like looking to make it better.

John Hawker:

Yeah, because there's a very particular I say particular aesthetic. There is an aesthetic in there and there's a lot of art in there. That I'm assuming, given what you've just said. You've curated, that you've chosen, whatever that's changed over the years to isn't it what you, what you showing, yeah, yeah, but he's an awesome space to be in, thank you. How, how do you transition from? So, your gas engineer, mm-hmm, you're going around to people's houses.

Andy Yates:

Yeah.

John Hawker:

I'd imagine one on one, two on one maybe, dealing with one kind of time. Now you're behind the counter in a coffee shop dealing with cues and cues of people the customer service part of it. Yeah, how did you? How do you transition into that? How was that an easy transition?

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I'm me and I'll always be me in that shop if I'm having a bad day. I'm having a bad day. I'm not gonna hide it. I know it's probably a bad thing and you should. You know, like put a smile on all the time and that, but it's hard. We live in a real world. I live in a real world. If I'm having a shit, I'm having a shit day.

Andy Yates:

Hmm like, and that's probably not the best thing to be like, but that's the way it is people. Might some other people moan about me. Sometimes I'm fucking not smiling. It's that never. But I'm not gonna fake smile to you. If I'm having a bad day, I'm having a bad day, man. Yeah, do you know what I mean. Instead of bad mouthing, be like you're right.

John Hawker:

Yeah, I mean, that's what you could do, good yeah people are straight away.

Andy Yates:

Wanna have a ticket, yeah.

John Hawker:

I think the expectation again in Lee is that you're gonna have like your customer face. Yeah, yeah whatever's going on behind the scenes, there's the expectation that someone's always gonna be smiling, always gonna be saying whatever it is to kind of appease the customer. Do you know what I think Personal feeling around it is, if you're unashamedly honest about it? I don't think you can have a problem if you're sitting there saying, no, I'd like, I'm this, this and this, pretend to be something you're not. That's when it becomes inauthentic or disingenuous.

John Hawker:

But if you, if you're honest enough to say I'm having a shit day, I'm gonna try and mask it because half of the issue that people burn out of the jobs they do because they're masking the way they're really feeling, yeah, yeah. So I've got all respect for it, but it is a transition. I sit in an office on my own every day. If you put me in a customer facing role day in, day out, I would be an asshole.

Andy Yates:

I'd be pretending not to be one which would mean I wouldn't be doing the job for for very long, if I'm honest.

Andy Yates:

But I think that also the difference with mine is that I'm five years deep and I'm I'm the owner, but I'm still the guy who's behind that ramp every day. And a lot of business aren't like that anymore. Like, like I said, I opened it as a career change, not as a business. Yeah, I could step back now for one inch and I could staff that shop fully and and kind of not be around and do whatever. Yeah, but I want to make coffee still. I still want to be doing that side of it. So I want to be there, I want that interaction with a customer. So I think that's a lot more pressure on it with that as well.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I gotta be people expect to see me behind there. Yeah when you know where was you yesterday. I'm like I can have a day off again.

John Hawker:

But how nice as well, like the expectation that you're gonna be there is. It's a blessing and a curse, hey, but what a nice thing that you're both the shop front. Yeah, it's like such a mainstay of Lee road now if that wasn't there as cult and that little, that little a-frame.

John Hawker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah people would mourn the loss of that. Yeah, that's a lovely thing that in five years You've created this absolute sort of yeah, this mainstay in what is a. Really, you know, there's a lot of independent businesses in Lee which I talk about towards the end too. But yeah, mate, I applaud what you've built, this amazing, but I do appreciate it comes with its own pressure as well, especially when you order, face of it Well, and you're doing it.

Andy Yates:

It's not just that I'm just making coffee, but I'm doing everything, like the order behind the scenes after ordering the social media. That's all me at everything, is it really?

John Hawker:

I do what you're social, everything.

Andy Yates:

I do all of that sort of stuff. So then, trying to think about that and trying to be on top of that while doing this and doing that, it's like and smiling at customers.

John Hawker:

Yeah, there's a lot and being present.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, yeah and it's like it's not excuses, but it is. It does take its toll and it's it's hard, but I wouldn't change it.

John Hawker:

I love it. I think people just appreciate the honesty and the transparency and, like I said, it'd be disingenuous if you, if you were sat there going I'm having a shit day. Yeah, let me just put this fake smile on and I've made so many friends from that shop.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I go out with now, out of out of them coming in, that I don't. They're not customers, they're their old friends, generally friends of mine, that I'll go out with yeah which is which is lovely to be able to have that.

John Hawker:

Yeah, I mean so. Um, so you're five years old now. When did you celebrate your fifth birthday as recent, wasn't it 8th February. 8th February.

Andy Yates:

Oh shit, so okay. So super recent happy birthday mate Okay.

John Hawker:

You're the only person working in there behind the counter. For how long? What would you? What? So? So when, when you're making coffee, yeah, you start the business how long is it that you're the only person that's making coffee for your customers before you start hiring start? Oh, I see.

Andy Yates:

Just after COVID. Really okay, I take it I'd started needing proper help. Yeah, Um so Sam did work Mondays at one stage. Yeah, um, she was doing the Monday side because I the very first year I kind of done seven days a week. Yeah and then Sam started doing the Monday and that kind of helped take that it's a lot, yeah, it's a lot.

Andy Yates:

of seven days a week, yeah, yeah, yeah so then I was doing six days a week and then, and then the weekend started getting busy, I was like shit, I need some. And then I just had friends that kind of helped me out and like jumped on when I needed and stuff like that. And then I just, and then I kind of everyone that works for me now are I've known them through the shop- Friends.

John Hawker:

I've become just struck up conversations over the years and then yeah, yeah, and in they come and they work for me.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, and a lot of people before that were friends that I've just yeah, I've just known them. I've been like do you want some hours? Do you want to come work? Oh no, that's what it was.

John Hawker:

Yeah, because I was just. I was just wondering again you're a self confessed, you didn't say control freak?

Andy Yates:

I like to be in control, maybe.

John Hawker:

Yeah, I think it's the same same with my approach when I think about I could grow the business bit of me hiring people. The irony is that I work in recruitment but thinking about recruiting anyone for work for me is painful, yeah, yeah. I just wondering how that that, because you're giving someone else even a partial bit of control to rep? Even if it's just representing cult when they're saying.

John Hawker:

Yeah standing there to like what's that, what's that process like? But it seems like you've got the warmest audience there in the first place to start thinking I'll get on with you. Yeah, yeah, this is working.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, come behind the counter, and we'll start training you up from there.

John Hawker:

So it doesn't sound like it was a. It was an organic. It sounds like it was an organic process.

Andy Yates:

Then start bringing people with you and building it now.

John Hawker:

Yeah, so, and the thing that stops you just staffing that shot is because you like the process of being by an account and making the coffee, so do you longer term then? I was saving this for the end, but I'll ask it now what are the plans for that shot? Do you see yourself doing that for the foreseeable Well, that shot.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I don't know what's the plans for that shot, but I mean it. I don't know what, where I'm going to go with it as in. I'm happy with it where it is and what it's doing. It's great. I need sort of tattoo inside of it a little bit more, is that?

John Hawker:

because you need someone actually work. I don't know much about a tattoo inside of it.

Andy Yates:

I had artists that led, but they left and open their own studio. I'm now in control of that, so me and Sam were business partners. We're now not.

John Hawker:

Okay.

Andy Yates:

I bought her out last year, so now it's just fully my business, so I take control of everything now. So yeah, I just need to try and hopefully get some. It's just it's tattooing hard at the minute, from the sounds of it. I'm just trying to get artists in there and stuff, everyone's after artists. So it's just a bit like yeah, I don't know, colt is what Colt is at the minute.

Andy Yates:

I'm happy with it. We'll give it a tell the end of the year and we'll see what happens. Nice, and we'll see what happens with that. My goal for the future is I'd love another shop, yeah.

John Hawker:

In this part of in this part of Essex or further afield? Oh, in this part of Essex, yeah.

Andy Yates:

I need to be close enough to people know who the brand is. Yeah, close to me, but not too close to me to take my own business.

John Hawker:

Yeah, yeah, because you literally like just siphoning off people that could be going up to you.

Andy Yates:

But then there's a lot of West Cliff would be the area if I move anywhere. Yeah, there's a lot of people moving from Lee to West Cliff now.

John Hawker:

And I think, a lot of money coming into the area now. Yeah, because I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that the prices initially aren't as high, so it's all starting to spill out.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, that'd be an interesting I think West Cliff is going to be a very he's going to rock it up.

John Hawker:

Yeah.

Andy Yates:

I'm hoping he's going to start getting a lot busier, which would be nice.

John Hawker:

I'd be interested in seeing how that evolves. Yeah, it sounds like there's a definitely plans. There's plans and I think I just.

Andy Yates:

But I need to also step back from cult in a way, not step back. Well, I need to before I can open something else, yeah. I need to kind of come back from that a little bit to give myself time and space to be able to do that. Yeah because everyone says to me now we're joking another one. And I'm like, yeah, I would love to. And then the next question is what are you going to do then? Are you going to be in cult? Would you be in a new one? And I'm like shit.

John Hawker:

I didn't think that far.

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I mean, I'm like I can't be in both places. So it's nice that people, like I said, people come in to see me, which I love, yeah, and they want that. But it's then very like it puts another thing on you, like stress on you.

John Hawker:

It's pros and cons. Again, I don't want to keep comparing what I do and what you do, but from a from an ownership control perspective, I love, I love the branding stuff that I do and I don't know what you're like with doing the socials. You know, half of it is a bit of a bit of ag, but the aesthetics the same as continuity, and then also you don't have to invest time and upskining somewhere else, but you're also investing your own time in doing it, so it's always just catch 22.

Andy Yates:

It's all time. Yeah, if I've got time, I love doing all of it. Yeah, I'm trying to, in a way, do a little bit of a rebrand with cult this year. I want to add some bits and I want to do and I want to push the cult brand. Yeah, a lot more this year. That's that's my focus. Is this for this year? So it's, but it's time.

John Hawker:

Where's where did the name come from? Because I mean it works. It works so well and I think when you think about the community that you've built around cult, I mean it works even better. So where did the name come?

Andy Yates:

from. There's not a great story, I'm afraid stories.

John Hawker:

The story is a story.

Andy Yates:

We got, we got the shop and we needed to register the business and then we were going through stuff and there was a list of stuff and I was like I really like cult and it was like it's called a cult and that was then. That was literally it. It can be as basic as that I didn't know what to call it for such a long time. It's the hardest thing and then I was just a list of them and then that just looked at me and I was like, yeah, let's cult cults one.

John Hawker:

It's worked out so well, I think community. So running theme throughout season two of Jobs Worth has been every single guest that I've invited on is a business owner and entrepreneur or a creative person that's based in and around Leon City, some slightly further, but we only go as far as South it.

John Hawker:

So it was my, my sort of hope during the course of these conversations, the kind of pinpoint why the concentration of entrepreneurs, business owners, creatives, is so high around this area. Because I think it is. I feel like you've got. You look at Lee Broadway, you look at Lee Road and there are so many independent shops there and I think that's what makes this area stand out. So we talk about community and I asked one of my guests I don't know if you know Charlotte Sayer, she owns the boundary wedding venue. Charlotte came on and she was, she was. It was a great conversation, but she mentioned this sense of collaboration between business owners in Lee yeah.

John Hawker:

Now I've got to say Andy, I think I've seen you in maybe every shop on.

Andy Yates:

Lee Road one time or another. So do you think?

John Hawker:

do you think Charlotte's got something there Like there are and don't get me wrong, you're not going to get collaboration between all businesses, but it does seem to be this real collaborative mindset between a lot of business owners. Do you experience that 100%?

Andy Yates:

we are all small business at the end of the day and we're all in it. We all want to do well. So, we all trying to support each other. I mean, I think, especially on my bit of Lee Road, I've got a local merchants, I've got Vino, then I've got other kids, just us four together.

John Hawker:

All the shops have seen you in ironically. Yeah, they're there.

Andy Yates:

But there and we all go to each other and we all like support each other because we know what, we know how tough it is, so you try and do all that.

John Hawker:

Was that bond kind of forged a bit deeper during COVID, do you think, or was it? Did it just happen again organically because of where you're based and location?

Andy Yates:

I think so. I think local merchants weren't there.

John Hawker:

No, that graph, though. They're only just over a year old, I think so. Yeah, they would celebrate. Yeah, they weren't there.

Andy Yates:

And at the time, I think, when COVID hit Jamie wasn't Vino, that was Sam and Charlie.

John Hawker:

I should know. I think Jamie took it over to sort of tail end of 2020. So when it first, it's embarrassing because I've interviewed Jamie, anyway 2020, 2021. But yeah, charlie and Sam definitely had the shop wait like during the deepest, darkest first lockdown.

Andy Yates:

I'd say the March 2020. Gemma was the other kid. She was there, but she had only been on Lee Road a little while because she came to Lee Road just because she used to be up near Chalkwell Park.

John Hawker:

Yeah, she'd moved the shop from where near abouts where I live. I remember when they did that move, so she moved down to Lee Road.

Andy Yates:

So then she was. Obviously she struggled through COVID because she couldn't be open, but she was doing what she could to kind of make money Survive.

John Hawker:

Yeah, and I think that collaborative kind of effort that's made from everyone and you can see it as well. Like you know, a charity that you do a lot of work for, golden Geese is it literally you go down. It's a local charity and it does some incredible work, but you go down Lee Road or Lee Broadway, those posters in every single shop, everyone in that community pushing together and doing stuff, and you've done a lot of collaborations with brands that have showcased either art or fashion in cult as well, haven't you so?

John Hawker:

I just yeah, I don't think you get that everywhere, and that's why.

Andy Yates:

I think, I think, I mean.

John Hawker:

I'm not. I'm not on the Leon C Tories board and. I'm not issues with this area as well I think, with a lot of the guests I've spoken to, are in a similar mindset. There's a lot of things that you know. Maybe you wouldn't shout out about, but I think you know. Businesses and individuals looking after each other does seem to be a running thing You've got to.

Andy Yates:

Like I said, we're all in it for the same thing.

John Hawker:

Yeah, definitely, definitely Okay, I'm going to. By the end of this season, I'm going to. I'm definitely going to have come to like a concise conclusion about what it is about this area that draws people in.

Andy Yates:

I'm getting there. I've got a few episodes left.

John Hawker:

Okay. So, andy, I'm going to now go to the closing tradition on this podcast. Now, if you've not got through, as I've said this a lot, I don't hold it against anyone if they've not listened to these episodes. But the closing tradition on my podcast is I've kind of nicked the idea from a very famous podcast where the previous guest leaves a question for the next guest, but I haven't done that. Okay, what you get is a question from my mum.

Andy Yates:

Yes.

John Hawker:

Now all I do is get my mum's played a big part in a lot of my branding which you won't find in many recruitment agencies.

John Hawker:

But mum likes to get involved and I think she's hurt her feelings if I didn't play it. So I give my mum a rough bio of the guests that have gone on, oh God. And then she just asks a question on a voice note. Now I don't listen to the question beforehand, so I apologize in advance for whatever she's asked, but I play it down the mic. Hi Andy, as more people turn away from dairy, what is the best plant milk that you can recommend for your product? Thank you, fantastic. Bless you, mum. Bless you. I thought she might go down that route of plant milk.

John Hawker:

Now, why do I feel like you've got an issue with plant milk, or?

Andy Yates:

are you all right with it? No, I'd only have one. Yeah, right, okay, I use oatmeal, can I see? It Okay yeah.

John Hawker:

But any others you just wouldn't, because there's a difference between people that want to go down the sort of non-dairy route and what works when you're making coffee, because you talk about the process and without geeking out about it? Yeah, are there some milks that just do not work in your opinion, when you're making coffee?

Andy Yates:

Yeah, I just when I opened Colt it was I wanted to make a product that I loved and I liked. It's really bad. I don't like other alternative milks, right, so I'm not going to sell them. Yeah, there you go. Simple as that. Do you know what I mean and I don't think they work well with my coffee Oat milks is I don't personally drink milk in my coffee anymore, right, I used to have cows milked and I went to oat milk and now I just I don't like milk in my coffee at all Right yeah.

Andy Yates:

But oat milks, you only want to taste nice in it.

John Hawker:

Yeah, or does it taste?

Andy Yates:

like that, but that's. That's your opinion, it's my shop.

John Hawker:

Do you know what I mean? I love that because I do a lot with businesses and individuals about branding and personal brand, and your personal brand should filter out, yeah, the clients that you want to come to you and the ones that you don't.

John Hawker:

Yeah, and by doing what you want to do, you know, unashamedly. I'm going to filter out the people I want coming into my shop Because it's a product that I'm happy to put my name to, and and I'm proud to serve and I know that's what tastes right and I know my coffee tastes good with it.

Andy Yates:

So I'm going to bring that product out.

John Hawker:

Nice.

Andy Yates:

I'm not going to do something because I want to make money from it or whatever. I'm going to do it because I believe in it and you're putting your name to it at the end of the day, aren't you Exactly?

John Hawker:

Yeah, I know mum's going to ask me if I don't ask this question. What particular brand of oat milk were not sponsored?

Andy Yates:

But what particular brand of oat milk would you go for Minor figures, nice? I've always used minor figures. It's the only oat milk I drink. I'm not a fan of oatley.

John Hawker:

Yep.

Andy Yates:

Personally, I haven't tried many of the others. Okay, they're a lot out there now, yeah, and there are a lot of barista ones which you need, that to obviously foam the milk and that and. But minor figures is Minor figures. I kind of wouldn't be them in the first place because their branding's wicked.

John Hawker:

I love their branding.

Andy Yates:

I like the idea of having them in the shop and then I just love working with them. Nice Minor figures are the only one I use.

John Hawker:

Lovely stuff. Maybe we will be sponsored by minor figures.

Andy Yates:

That'd be great. Minor figures You're nice, yeah, minor figures, minor figures. Yeah, andy, it's been an absolute pleasure having you in mate.

John Hawker:

Thanks, man, Thank you so much for that really honest conversation too. And, yeah, I've enjoyed a rest of your day. Mate Really enjoyed that. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you.

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