A London coffee company that runs cafes and cocktail bars, roasts coffee and sells it online and in supermarkets.
Grind describes itself as a coffee company born in London. It began as a single coffee shop on the Old Street roundabout in East London and has grown into a group of cafes, cocktail bars and restaurants, plus a coffee roaster that sells beans, pods and ready-to-drink coffee online and through retailers including Waitrose and Sainsbury's.
Its founder and chief executive is David Abrahamovitch, who studied economics at UCL. He has said that after his father died he kept the family's Old Street building and turned it into a meeting place, and that the business started without a formal business plan. Grind's idea is a hybrid venue that serves lattes in the morning and espresso martinis in the evening.
Sites named in recent press include Shoreditch, Soho (with a basement cocktail bar), London Bridge and St Pancras Station, with commuter stores near other train stations and a Glasgow Central Station branch planned in an earlier profile. Grind also supplies coffee and pods to Soho House locations. The company says its online shop is now larger than its high-street sales. It bought a ready-to-drink coffee brand called Bottleshot and has talked about launching canned drinks. A 2022 Soho House feature says it makes more than two million cups a year, roasts in London for Europe and in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for American Soho House sites, and has been the exclusive in-house coffee for Soho House worldwide since 2020, including barista training. It also runs a fleet of vintage Citroen coffee trucks and sells compostable coffee pods, which it presents as a response to single-use waste. The same feature names Kaz James as co-founder.
Abrahamovitch says hospitality is about people and links each site's performance to the quality of its general manager, with strong recruitment and retention seen as essential. He has also said Grind raised money from thousands of customers through crowdfunding to stay independent and make longer-term brand decisions. These are his own comments in interviews, so ask about culture when you speak to the team. A 2019 profile counted over 300 employees; more recent headcount was not found.
Jobs at a business like this range from baristas and bartenders to site and general managers, roasting and production, e-commerce and customer service, brand and social media, wholesale accounts, and finance and property. It is a good example of a retail brand where front-of-house experience can lead into management.
Website: grind.co.uk
PURPOSE helps school and university students explore 62 sectors and over 1,000 entry-level careers in the UK, then connects them directly with employers.
Explore PURPOSE