Behind the Bar with Sophie Smith
On one slow evening during the second Welsh lockdown, admittedly after a glass of wine, I thought it would be fun to interview my own wife, Sophie Smith. Sophie is based in Cardiff, with me and our silly cat Spaghetti, and has been working in hospitality for four years as the co-owner of Hard Lines (coffee roastery).
Sophie recently became the proud owner of Good News, a new Cardiff bottle shop, selling craft beer, low intervention wine and cider. Sophie is someone who I have always looked up to when it comes to running a business, both her and her business partner Matt have created a community in Cardiff that I and so many others are proud to be a part of.
Over a bottle of orange wine and a Dusty Knuckle pizza, we talked about accessibility, running a business, discovering cider and Cardiff’s food and drink scene.
When did Hard Lines begin?
Sophie: So, I run Hard Lines with my friend Matthew Jones. We went to university together, and both used to work in theatre and live events. In January of 2016 after a really hectic Christmas we went on holiday with another friend to Prague and Barcelona. We got to talking about how disillusioned we were with theatre, and the lifestyle but how we were both really interested in coffee and food. We left that trip with the decision to do a pop up and see how that goes. So we went for it, with a side project called Outpost, which was a brew bar, so pour over coffee, and vinyl records. It just kind of snowballed from there really quickly. After the first six months we got a little shop in a shared space, then 12 months after that a space in Cardiff Central Market.
Helen: And now you have a cafe roastery, how has that been?
Sophie: Yeah, it’s just crazy when you say it out loud. We've gone through and have done so much. So we crowdfunded to get a roaster in 2018, which we did successfully, but then that was a very arduous process to be honest. We did get a space in the city centre but then we lost that space. We just scrambled but to be honest it was the best thing that could have happened, we got another space in a suburban neighbourhood outside of the city centre. We opened that in November 2019 and… I feel like that’s when we became “serious business”.
Helen: It’s a pretty serious jump though in terms of, going from an espresso bar and selling some cakes to having a full blown kitchen right?
Sophie: That was a huge elevation, Matt was the power behind that. His passion has always been to have a small kitchen. Taking inspiration from American diners and really good food like brunch and big hearty sandwiches. We’d never worked with a chef before, we'd never done hot food and the space that we have now was just an empty shell. We had to build a kitchen from scratch, put the electricity in, the water and build a bar. It was an amazing opportunity.
Helen: So you rebranded the business from Outpost to Hard Lines in 2017 and stopped doing records part way through 2018 right?
Sophie: Yeah so in the early days of planning in 2016, Matt had said he’d always wanted a little coffee shop and I said I’d always wanted a record store so we decided to combine the two. From the get go we had said that if something wasn’t working we would have to cut our losses. When we got the roaster we got to a point where we just thought, something has to give.
We just decided that we wouldn’t keep going down too many different avenues, we needed to streamline and be a coffee business. We've made some amazing relationships in the Cardiff music scene and we still work really closely with a lot of venues, musicians and labels. It’s still a huge part of our brand identity. We just couldn't put any more into that.
Helen: You’ve also started to do more events, and supper clubs too. Although just before lockdown you were supposed to host the French Press World Cup, the trophy for which I was ready to win.
Sophie: I would still love to do that. It just seems insane that there will be a time where 30 people will be in a room but it is very much still something we want to do. It’s very tongue in cheek but we’re super passionate about trying to remove the pretension and bring more accessibility to coffee. It's not for a tiny group of people, good coffee is for everyone. It’s something we’re trying to do with Hard Lines and also Good News. So we decided to do the Cafetiere World Cup, Eddie from Roundhill and Will from MEC were going to be involved and it was just going to be a fun community event that we will definitely do one day.
Helen: Before you were based solely out of the City Centre but do you find that being in Canton you’re now hitting a market that you weren’t before?
Sophie: Yes outside the shop is one of the busiest bus stops in and out of the centre so we get a lot of people travelling, a nice mix of office people or contractors or people just shopping in Iceland next door. Canton straddles what is a traditionally working class area and a very middle class area. To make everyone comfortable though I think it's all about staff, and that your space is accessible, and everything is just easier to consume, I guess.
One of the things we wanted to do is open a diner, so it might come across as American to lots of people, but to some people it looks like all the cafes through the valleys, which is what we were going for. Lots of Italian people moved over to Wales at the start of the 20th Century and opened Italian style cafes throughout Wales. So there are these amazing frozen in time little coffee shops, sadly lots of them are closed now but that’s what we wanted to do. It doesn’t look out of place on Cowbridge Road East. We get lots of elderly people coming in and are just happy to sit in and have a drink, they don’t feel uncomfortable at all, which is what we were hoping for.
Helen: Which I think is important if you’re going to spend more money on your coffee, to make someone comfortable and welcome.
Sophie: Yeah and the thing is not everyone will get it or will be interested. Which is absolutely fine. We realised this when we first opened our stall in Cardiff Central Market, like the coffee places selling cappuccinos for £1.50 aren’t threatened by us and we aren’t threatened by them, because we have totally different customer bases. For us, as with beer, wine and cider, it is about the supply chain. Transparency is becoming a bigger and bigger thing. You can get coffee for £1 but where does that come from? There’s traceability on all of our coffee, we know the farmers who grow the coffee and all of the staff are being paid properly.
Helen: Trying to strike the balance of accessible and ethical trading isn’t the easiest thing to do, even having the conversation sometimes can be difficult. How did Hard Lines do over the National lockdown?
Sophie: We just kept going, we turned our cafe into a giant mailroom, and our Chef became our courier. We just roasted and posted coffee. We were lucky enough to be able to adapt, not all businesses are able to.
Helen: You have just started Good News, your sibling company… or child?
Sophie: Our boozy baby, is what we have been calling it. Yes, Good News. It’s still in the same world of food and drink though and it’s something that personally we have always enjoyed as a team. It was always part of the plan for the cafe, that we would have a license and we would do evening service. We opened, found our feet, smashed Christmas and then lockdown happened, which has definitely kind of moulded us.
It’s been a really hard year, but we just didn't stop. And we were like so now we've got this time, let's put our license application in. So we got on and off sales and when we reopened initially we were like a little general store. But then we had the bottle shop and roastery inside the cafe and we quickly realised, we were throwing spaghetti at the wall. It was just too complex.
We were coffee, food, wholesale, delivery service, we’ve got a market space, beer, wine, cider, it was just too much. We wanted to be able to focus and give people two really polished brands, so we split them off and now Good News is our drinks business. We hit the ground running with the physical store, which is still based out of our cafe. And then we got the online shop running in October. We deliver locally the same day and ship nationally next day which is really cool.
Helen: Have you always had an interest in beer, wine and cider?
Sophie: Definitely beer, for a long time I have really enjoyed craft beer and wine. Products like low intervention and natural wine have been something I have gotten more into over the past few years. Through running Hard Lines we became very friendly with Wrights who have an amazing Food Emporium and wine shop in Llanarthney. They also import wine and for a few years had a little bottle shop in Cardiff. Through them, we got to try some amazing things and meet great people. We've been able to put coffee into places that we really admire, like Top Cuvee in London, Nordy and Idle Hands in Manchester.
Helen: It’s not the first time Hard Lines has dipped it’s toe into the beer industry either is it?
Sophie: No so we’ve worked closely a few times with a micro-brewery called Rival who we did a seasonal coffee beer with called Insert Coffee Here. We've done some bits with Left Handed Giant and to some other local breweries. We also launched that beer and the roasting side of the business in the same craft beer bar where we had our first pop up. I think at the time we were insanely busy too, I remember that Matt and Sam, who runs the roastery, were away at Bristol Balloon Fiesta at the time, so it was just me and Cadi bagging tones of coffee. Then we went over to the bar to launch and then were in work again the next day! It all just happened so quickly. That coffee pale ale we did with Rival though is to this day one of my favourite coffee beers.
Helen: It’s also one of my favourites, and I never thought I would like a coffee pale ale. Tell me about Cadi Lane
Sophie: So Cadi has always done all of our design work, and has been a key part of building the brand. She now works alongside Stephen Madoc Pierce, who does all our online and digital stuff. The look they have created is a huge part of our business. The brand and business is continually evolving. It’s been cool to see how Cadi’s style has changed over the past four years, and how much she has changed in terms of what she wants to do and the medium she works in. It’s cool to look back at the hand drawn work that she would produce and then scan in. Even though it’s changed so much, it is still the same fun, which is nice.
Helen: Same energy but different right?
Sophie: Right. We have a phenomenal team, there’s eight of us in total and we’re just really lucky
Helen: So when you first started stocking booze you were just stocking beer and wine but you’ve recently started stocking cider. Why did you decide to do that?
Sophie: I started drinking cider super late, as many people have, I had a bad experience as a teenager from Strongbow and then I said I would never touch it again. Then I started to try more of it, through you having an interest in it and also through our Chef at Hard Lines. A few months before lockdown we started a conversation with Albert from Ross Cider about doing a paring evening with us at Hard Lines, of food and single varietal ciders. That was supposed to happen in the beginning of April but obviously we went into lockdown. We still really want to do that event.
Over lockdown though I started trying even more ciders. It is a bit of a harder sell, we’ve started dipping our toe in with some perries and ciders from Ross, Little Pomona, Pilton and people are loving it so it’s great. We’d love to build that up and hopefully be able to do events again.
Helen: It’s nice now you have the two businesses, where they kind of intertwine with each other. Going from coffee to booze, as much as tasting is a transferable skill, has it been much of a learning curve for you?
Sophie: They all seem to go hand in hand in my head. Espresso is a pretty intense, thick and complex drink. Hard on the palate I guess. But I remember early on when we put ourselves and the staff at the time through the SCA sensory training, they said that it can be applied to everything.
I think it's definitely a transferable skill from coffee, from processes and tasting. It is however so broad, with hop varietals and grape varietals, the processes and bottling. I don't claim to be super knowledgeable about anything. I'm still very much on the learning curve but it's really interesting, and fun, and people are really helpful. I've got great friends in the drinks industry who share information the same way as we do in coffee. In coffee we all kind of know each other and it's nice to kind of dip your toe into other industries, where it's a similar thing.
The bottle shop is a pay off really, to all the hard work we have done, now we get to buy all of the fun things we like and learn and talk about it with our customers. It’s done nothing for my imposter syndrome though!
Helen: It's cool, because as you said earlier, your first ever coffee pop up as Outpost was in a craft beer bar, so you've kind of come full circle in some ways.
Sophie: Yeah and it’s nice to go back too. Craig, the assistant manager there who let us do that first pop up comes into the cafe now and I still go into the bar. It’s really nice. Cardiff has a very small and ever-changing scene that we’re very proud to be a part of.
Helen: I don't think I didn't appreciate Cardiff until I started working in hospitality at all. Once I started meeting people who love trying things, you know? I first started out in coffee because of you and went to cupping, then moved to tastings for beer or wine. It’s both a personal and a shared experience and it’s the nicest part of the drinks industry. Of course it has its faults, as we’re both well aware but I think the fact that people can come together over a passion for one thing. Products that are historical too, they are woven throughout the entirety of human history and we’re not even sure how far back most of these beverages really go.
Sophie: It’s also really fun to have a cross disciplinary role. It's super nerdy but also fun.
Helen: On a personal note I’m thrilled. Even though for most of our relationship you have always been the most interested in beer and wine and I've just been along for the ride. It’s really nice to be able to have these conversations and split bottles together over the past few years and share knowledge.
Helen: You and Matt were pretty young when you started Hard Lines. What are some of the biggest challenges that you faced? And what advice would you give to any young person wanting to start their own business?
Sophie: I honestly think probably the biggest one of biggest advantages we have is that we are so young, because really what we did was crazy, we both had good jobs, and were doing pretty well financially. Then we decided to sack it all in and make no money. Absolutely no money. It was really hard for a really long time. I think that’s what I would say if anyone ever asked me, it’s that anyone can do it because we did it. We had no experience other than a passion for it.
We didn't have any money and you know, we were living in overdrafts and eating quick noodles. It was really tough but we worked hard and we never stopped because we loved it. Now we’re really lucky because that work paid off and now we have this amazing thing. I think people see Hard Lines as this big polished thing. But we’re just a team of people, a little group of 20 somethings.
Don't be afraid that you don't have a business degree or you’re not a Cicerone or SCA accredited. Anyone can do it because we do.
Helen: Who are some of your favourite makers and brewers at the moment?
Sophie: I'm still blown away this year by Beak Brewery, they came on our radar with Lulla. I think they’re making really brilliant simple, just perfect beers. Then it's great to have some Left Handed Giant in, they’re based in Bristol and we know one of the brewers from when they had a bar in Cardiff. A lot of people have a special place in their hearts for Left Handed Giant, so they've always got a little shelf in our shop. Then there’s Pressure Drop and Deya, they’re just killing it, whatever they’re selling we’re buying. Newbarns and Donzozo too!
I think, and it's always been a part of what we do with everything so when we first opened the record shop and right through to like the roastery. It’s like “this is what we love. And this is what we think is good, and we're excited for you to try this”. It’s nice to have carved a relationship with our customers where people do trust us. So that's what we've done with Good News too. Our buying isn't super broad. It's actually quite concise. We just want really good stuff for people that’s not going to break the bank. There are places you can go that have everything but we're not that place right now. A lot of our customers aren’t super interested in the higher percentage stuff or crazy pastry stouts or milkshake IPAs so we keep it simple. And that's great.
Helen: What is next?
Sophie: The roastery is expanding so that's really fun and exciting. Continuing to do fun things. Like, you know two weeks ago, Matt was like “I think we should sell pumpkin spice lattes in big jugs and we'll drive them around Cardiff” so last week we did that. And we delivered like 120 pumpkin spice lattes around Cardiff. So just keep doing fun and silly things. It's nice to have the room to do that too.
Keep making really great coffee and getting our coffee out further across the UK. Continuing to develop Good News, expand the stock, speed up delivery. All good stuff!
