Couple’s cafe dream a foodie success story
FIVE years ago, a married couple decided to pack in their jobs and make a living out of what they loved doing the most – baking and drinking coffee.
Neither Osian nor Catrin Jones thought they’d go on to create a foodie brand and build an 80-seater restaurant in the heart of Cardigan, attracting customers from miles around.
But that’s exactly what they’ve done with Crwst and even now, when they walk past on a day off, they can barely believe it themselves.
“We do think, ‘that’s ours, that’s mad, that’s our dream right there’,” said Osian, a 31-year-old trained chef, before Catrin, 28, chipped in: “That’s what we were talking about in Cardiff, going into coffee shops with all these ideas we had and it’s actually there now.”
The young Osian initially wanted a career in music but switched to catering. After graduating from Pembrokeshire College, he followed Catrin to Cardiff, where she studied Welsh at university.
The couple, who’ve been together for 11 years, met in Cardigan as teenagers. Catrin didn’t know what she wanted to do and after graduating wound up as a fundraiser for the homelessness charity Llamau. But having grown up in the tiny coastal village of Tresaith, she’d spent her weekends and holidays working in hospitality and loved the cafe culture in the Welsh capital city.
“In our spare time, we always used to go to cafes and restaurants and Osian was always baking bread at home,” she said. “We always talked about how one day we’d open our own place because Osian has a talent.”
Then Wales qualified for the Euros in 2016 and Osian, a massive football fan, took it as a sign: “We thought, let’s go out to France and follow them round and it’s a perfect opportunity to do some market research,” he said.
In the summer of 2016, they spent as much time in tiny French patisseries and bakeries as they did in the football stadiums and came back brimming with ideas and dreams.
They established a strong brand early on, brainstorming ideas for names around the kitchen table before settling on Crwst. Then, with no money and no commercial premises, the only thing they could do was start baking in their own kitchen. They built a customer base with remarkable swiftness and regulars started coming for their bread and brioche doughnuts. In less than a year, they realised they were on to something. The lightbulb moment came one weekend when Osian and Catrin had spent all day making 600 doughnuts before heading to two different markets – Osian in Cardigan and Catrin in Newcastle Emlyn.
“Both markets started at 10am. We started off with 600 doughnuts, but I phoned Catrin at 10.30am to say I’d run out already and did she have any left, but Catrin had sold out as well.”
Selling out within the hour became the norm by summer 2017 and that’s when they were approached by two businessmen – Pete Austin and Richard Jarman – who said they’d been watching their progress over the past year and were keen to invest in them and their brand.
“They bought a building in Cardigan and we rent it off them,” said Osian.
Crwst opened its doors for the first time in April 2018.
It might sound simple but Osian is doing himself and Catrin a disservice and glossing over the hours of hard work behind the scenes.
“We’ve gone from baking at home to having an 80-seater restaurant just like that,” said Osian. “It hit home, that responsibility, especially after Covid.”
It’s a demand that hasn’t tailed off as lockdown restrictions have eased and the restaurant has reopened inside.
They’ve had to find another unit to keep up with the demand and new wholesale orders coming through. And ever ambitious, they’ve just taken on a second venue at Poppit Sands at the start of the Pembrokeshire coast path, where they serve Crwst’s most popular bakes, ice creams and coffees. The demand for Crwst only grows.
“It was just a hunch,” said Osian, about how Crwst has gained such a foodie following. “We really thought our ethos and brand could make it round here. We created something that people want, and that ’s
amazing.”