After 15 years in Jesmond, Coolaboola Coffee has been forced to close permanently due to the pandemic.

Located on the concourse of Jesmond Metro station, the coffee shop has been badly affected by the impacts of COVID-19. The business relied heavily on office workers, public transport users and school staff, which have all had very limited movement.

Owner Ruairi McGuiness, told JesmondLocal that “primarily it was office workers on their morning commute, we were a part of their routine. People would get off a train two stops early to get a coffee from us in the morning. The second part was university students and staff, we’d get a decent amount during the day. The third part was Jesmond schools or parents on school runs. RGS staff would come across for pick-me-ups during the day.”

Since September students have been confined to their accommodation halls and office workers were told to work from home.

“A lot of residents were legal or accountancy so could stay home,” McGuinness said. “Although RGS reopened, they were under strict guidelines about when they entered and when they left at the end of the day. So that killed off the entire during-the-day business that we had.”

The shop shut for most of 2020, deliberately deciding to close a few weeks before government advice in March. At that stage no one knew quite how serious COVID was going to be. “Thankfully the government came in with financial support, the furlough scheme and some small grants which managed to keep the lights on,” he said. “In August we started pulling things together.”

McGuinness mentioned that pre-covid, the business had struggled to adjust to the changing Jesmond demographic. “When we opened up there was a lot of offices around the area, and over the last five or six years especially, a lot of these offices shut and moved. There is an awful lot more residential [footfall],” he said.

Although not all is bad, the company has kept ahold of the name and the brand. “I think there are a few gaps in the market that we know in terms of sourcing or bits and pieces of product we think could be better in the UK. So we might look into that,” he explained.

“At the moment I’m not sure I’ll be diving into another retail coffee business. If anything, it’ll be more coffee-based, using the experience I’ve picked up over the years.

“There is a new operator in there and they had some good ideas in terms of their product line and opening hours so hopefully there will be some continuity there for people when they do start venturing out again.”