Entrepreneur finds his

One of Cardiff’s best-loved companies is opening a sixth cafe in the city. Chris Pyke tells the story of Waterloo Tea Rooms

THE expanding Waterloo Tea Rooms empire all started, its founder says, for purely selfish reasons.

A walk with their newborn son was the catalyst for a business that is about to open its sixth cafe.

Branches in central Cardiff, as well as Penylan, Lakeside and Penarth make Waterloo one of the area’s fastest growing and most recognisable local brands.

But it all started when its founders just wanted somewhere to sit down for a drink.

Kasim and Aisha were taking a stroll through their Penylan neighbourhood when they realised there wasn’t anywhere local for them to sit down for a quick refreshment.

Two days later the local butcher’s closed down.

For some this might have been a coincidence. Not for Kasim and Aisha. The newly-vacant unit presented a perfect opportunity.

With Aisha’s planning background, and after discussions with the landlord, the pair were able to put in for a change of use.

Just like that, they were in the catering business.

Kasim was working as a pharmacist when the business started and his scientific background is evident as he talks about all facets of the company, which will be celebrating its tenth anniversary in December.

He also has a masters in international relations, and the tea rooms business has enabled him to bring all of these together under one roof. Well make that five – soon to be six – roofs as the independent cafes are becoming a chain.

“It coincided with the rise of speciality coffee shops in London,” says Kasim.

“The Aussies had just landed and were performing latte art and caring about where their beans were from.

“The quality aspect of the cafe had really come to the fore, whereas before coffee shops had been run by frustrated restaurateurs.”

Following the growth of coffee shops, and inspired by the tea culture he had witnessed while backpacking, Kasim wanted to challenge how individual our society had become.

“You would have a cup of coffee and it would be an individual cup of coffee. Over there it would be a ceremony, sharing tea pots,” he explained.

Kasim wanted to create an antidote to the espresso culture.

“I wanted to do something slightly different,” he explained.

“Tea had been kept in a domain of fancy hotels and quaint tea rooms, so I wanted to make it more of an everyday place. Where people thought they were walking into a cafe, and it didn’t feel too niche. That was the kind of vibe I wanted.”

Kasim wanted the focus to be on the quality of the ingredients and showcase the best tea from around the world.

At first the tea room was a side project. Once he had got it off the ground he moved back into pharmacy a few days a week.

The next year they won a best coffee shop of the year award. It was an accolade that really meant something to Kasim.

“It was nice because in my science background nothing compares to being peer reviewed as this effectively was like that.

“So, for sure we were doing something right,” he said.

The award gave the business a huge amount of exposure to speciality coffee shops. They started getting in touch and asking Kasim to import tea for them. That is how the wholesale business began, supplying shops across the UK and Europe.

As time went by the tea house was getting more well known, the wholesale business was thriving and Kasim was still doing pharmacy a few days a week.

“It was lovely having the safety net of the pharmacy, but for me to make a success of something I have got to devote all my time to it,” he explains.

“So I came off the register in pharmacy and got rid of that safety net and that meant I needed to put all my energy towards the business.”

And like the serendipity of the first shop the second came about in similar fashion.

Kasim was on a trip to Switzerland supplying tea to a hotel when he was trapped at Geneva Airport due to bad weather.

There he met a Penarth resident who worked for the letting agent EJ Hales and the conversation included the seaside town’s landmark art deco Washington building.

“Two days after we landed he phoned me and said ‘Kas you know that building you like is on the market if you want to meet the landlord?,’” he says.

“I went down there and did the deal on the second shop.”

This was 2013. While it had taken five years to go from one to two, the third was signed for a few weeks later, although it opened the next year.

Having grown up in Cardiff, a site in