Solid Ground Coffee, run by Young Swindon and Wiltshire, opened around four weeks ago after spending the last two years operating from a mobile coffee van.
The project originally began at the Youth Justice offices, where young people were introduced to hospitality, customer service and teamwork through the mobile café.
Rowan Kikke, Lead for Innovation, Collaboration and Skills at Young Swindon and Wiltshire, said the move into permanent premises is an important milestone for the initiative.
“We started Solid Ground about two years ago with our little mobile van that sits over at the Youth Justice offices, where we were exposing young people to fresh activities, fresh interventions and fresh roles, so that they could become more invested in their community.”
She said the coffee van provided a supportive environment where young people could build confidence before progressing into a busier setting.
“At the van we’re in an excellent position for young people to learn a lot of skills in quite a protected environment,” he said.
“We wanted to create a space that was more customer facing, so that when young people have developed those skills of being able to serve a customer and cope with a slightly busier lunch rush, they’re able to come over to the café and have that next stage of learning that’s a little bit more like the real world.”
Unlike many community projects, Solid Ground Coffee operates as a business. It pays rent, covers its own running costs and reinvests any income into creating further opportunities for young people.
“Part of being a social business is that we’re trying to take the charity sector into having that slightly hungrier business mindset,” Rowan said.
“The van has been able to wipe its own face. We don’t ever make profit, everything that we make is invested directly back into being able to open more spaces like this.”
She said the community has already embraced the café since it opened.
“We’re only open four weeks, but we find that the local community have been really supportive. They’re coming out, but we could always use more support.”
A key part of the project is that the young people working there are employed and paid for their work.
“All of our young employees who’ve come through the youth justice system are all paid employees as well,” Rowan said.
“We take young people who have been involved with the youth justice system, who have been highlighted as benefiting from learning food preparation, customer service or confidence-building skills, and they come and join us here as paid employees.”
The café is managed by youth worker Jess McGuire, who said it is already becoming a popular meeting place for local residents and library users.
“The response has been great. We’re getting busier. We’ve been open about four weeks now. It’s nice to see lots of regulars coming in and people having meetings in the space. It’s becoming a really nice place for people to come.”
Alongside speciality coffee, the café serves homemade soup, sandwiches, cakes, scones and ice creams.
Jess said its location inside the library has helped create a welcoming space for the community.
“People come down here for meetings. A lot of the library staff come in every morning for their coffees. It’s a nice place for people to come and have those chats.”
Ethan Parsons, a young person at Young Swindon and Wiltshire and an employee at Solid Ground said:
“My time with Young Swindon and Wiltshire has been really good. I enjoy being able to learn new skills at Solid Ground and being able to help customers out.”
Another young person working on the project said:
Since starting at the van(Solid Ground), I have gained confidence in myself and become more confident and tolerant of others, as well as gaining customer service skills. I feel I have more hope and plans for the future now and I am starting to learn how to budget and plan better with the money I earn. I am grateful to the training opportunities and have now learned barista skills. I have enhanced my food preparation skills further through my work on the van and I contributed the high food and hygiene standards of the van which I am proud of for the award we received.
The social business aims to equip young people with practical skills, confidence and employment experience, while ensuring every pound generated is reinvested into creating opportunities for others.
