Retro café closes its doors

Thursday 05 March 2020

A recently-opened café with a ‘retro’ twist has had to close its doors after just three months.

Despite recent efforts to put a new spin on the former Daily Grind, Mo’s Café announced with "deep regret" this week that it had been forced to shut up shop because its lease was unexpectedly not renewed.

The longstanding New Street coffee spot was taken on by former finance worker Joe Pinzari, who left the corporate world to pursue his passion of running bakeries and caterers.

He said that when he first saw the space he thought, “I don’t know what we’re going to do with this place!”

But after he came up with the name of Mo’s Café – inspired by the name of the coffee they were using – everything started to fall into place. 

Pictured: Joe Pinzari saw the café space as an "opportunity".

At this point they looked at getting some “modern retro artwork” and working on branding for inside and outside the café.

Speaking about his fondest memories of running the café, Joe said: “I think mainly getting involved in the development and involved in the design on how it was evolving into something quite special.”

The financier-turned-entrepreneur said that the short-lived venture was a “learning” experience for him, particularly in terms of discovering “how tough it is to work with a listed building”.

He continued: “The fond memories are there in terms of what’s been achieved with the rebrand and working with those around me to make it what it was.”

Joe described his staff as “brilliant”, adding: “I was very lucky to have those two and they stayed with me right until the end.” 

In terms of his future plans, Joe said that he’s going to be focusing on his current businesses – The Bakery and The Bean Café in St. Brelade, Island’s Choice Bakery and Sunrise Catering – and may even consider the Guernsey market, rather than investing in another town location again.

“Maybe Mo’s Café will appear somewhere one day. I know when you look at the high street itself, I could easily open a Mo’s Café along there somewhere, but at the end of the day it’s so saturated in town."

He added that high rents in the town centre make it difficult to turn a decent enough profit as an investment. 

To the customers who visited Mo’s Café during the short time it was open, Joe said: “We had some great regular customers – some real characters who came in. They really supported us… certainly those customers will be missed.”

From the office workers who came in to get their bacon rolls on a Friday morning, to the visitor who took a power nap in one of the comfy chairs, Joe thanked each and every one for their support.