Building a rural business empire on the back of coffee beans

**Building a rural business empire on the back of coffee beans**

Lewie Graham oversees several businesses in Kirkcudbright

The harbour town of Kirkcudbright is probably not the first place you would expect to find a young entrepreneur assembling a business empire.

Yet in a snug cafe, over a cappuccino, Lewis Graham — known to everyone as Lewie — has just been recognised for his work.

Together with business partner Robyn Goodare, who is from the town, they took over Feast a few years ago and launched the coffee bean roasting company Kirk-Coo-Brew.

Just across the road is their Italian restaurant, Portobello.

Employing up to 20 staff may not sound like much, but in a small place such as Kirkcudbright, that makes him a significant employer at just 27.

Lewie, who is originally from Herefordshire, has now received a South of Scotland Thistle award.

He said the region brought its own difficulties and benefits when it came to running a business.

"It feels quite isolated sometimes - not always in a bad way - sometimes in a really good way, we feel like we're separate from the rest of the world," he said.

"But the middle of winter can be really quiet and hard - it's a lot colder here than it is where I'm from as well."

Recruiting staff can also be difficult.

"At the moment I'm looking for a chef to run the Italian restaurant in the evening," he said.

"I have luckily found someone, but that search was almost impossible without doing word of mouth - there's no way you can put up a job advert online and find who you're after.

"But if I was two hours north in any of the big cities that wouldn't have been a problem at all."

Even so, he said there were other reasons people might envy what Galloway has to offer.

"As soon as you talk to people who are living in the big city, they're like, wow, I wish I was living in the countryside, running my own thing, doing mostly what I want a lot of the time," he added.

Locals, whether they have moved to the town or lived there all their lives, also enjoy being there.

"They will all say that it does feel like living on holiday a lot of the time," said Lewie.

"We get fantastic weather for most of the year - it's never really cats and dogs more than a day.

"Opportunity here is really good because the costs are fairly low, you can make what you want of something."

He is fully aware that south Scotland has given him the chance to experiment in business without the same level of risk he would face elsewhere.

"If I wanted to do something like this in Edinburgh or in England, it would be double and triple the price everywhere and it wouldn't be accessible," he said.

"So I think what people don't know about rural Scotland is that it is really accessible and there's lots of opportunity.

"Tourism's good here and it's really pretty and I think that means a lot to me."

For now, Robyn has told him there will be no further expansion, and Lewie said he would only open anything that was within "touching distance" of his current ventures and his staff.

"I've started employing people at 24 years old and it's a lot of work, but it's really one of the most rewarding things," he said.

"The job is getting people the job that they want.

"We have incredibly high retention - we don't lose people at all, unless to Uni or school.

"But all of our full-timers have been here the whole time we have, which is really nice - it's their project too."