The Black Sheep of Bruntsfield?

What one coffee shop chain’s expansion can tell us about Edinburgh’s changing high streets

Mark Thorne outside his popular eponymous Bruntsfield record store

Just beyond the Meadows, Bruntsfield’s high street is an unwinding comfort in Edinburgh’s ever-changing landscape. With its colourful variety of small, independent businesses, it seems to get spared the never-ending noise and rush of the city centre.

The neighbourhood has a clear independent identity. The street is packed with coffee shops and retailers, nestled in between long-standing local institutions. It is an eco-system, that tricks you into believing you never need to leave. There is a butcher, a bookshop, a greengrocer, fine dining and quick bites, gift shops, a pub - and no bank.

‘Black Sheep Coffee’ and ‘Coming Soon’ is what you now read while you can no longer withdraw cash.

“Bruntsfield loves a bit of speculation”, according to Jonathan Chierchia, who owns The Decanter, a ‘winery & dinery’ jjust across the road from Bruntsfield’s newest neighbour.

While no one thought an independent business would stand a chance to take over the old bank, he mentions there is some surprise about the fact another Coffee Shop will join the street. “It seems to be a lot of them, you’ve got Costa, Starbucks and now Black Sheep. So, you’ve got the Holy Trinity pretty much.”

What he fittingly describes as the ‘Holy Trinity’ is a row of national chains, which crowd around a junction in Bruntsfield with the same name – Holy Corner - due to the three churches on it. This Holy Trinity might leave you wondering about the future of Edinburgh’s local high streets and the vitality of all those local businesses we have associated with them for generations.

In case anyone had forgotten, Chierchia reminds us of what might be at stake: vibrancy, place and local identity.

The Rise of the Black Sheep

Over the last four years, Black Sheep Coffee has opened eleven stores across Edinburgh – most of them in the city centre with not one, but two on Princes Street.

The company was originally established in London, where its owners decided to “#LeaveTheHerdBehind”, with the mission to ‘challenge the establishment, take down the big corporate brands and rid the world of boring, average tasting coffee’. Somewhere on that mission, they then became an international corporate brand with their very own herd of coffee shops.

Their concept fits right into the current decrease of going out culture and rise of coworking spaces, which is accommodated perfectly in their clean, minimalistic and monochrome stores.

They provide places where people can get affordable food and coffee; some shops host music events and some – like the new ranch in Bruntsfield – even prepare cocktails. It is one place that seemingly fits all needs.

The company certainly has the financial security to afford a big unit like a former bank, and they have proven successful enough in the city to lead to the assumption that the branch in Bruntsfield should be an inevitable success.

As contradictory as it may seem, Black Sheep Coffee filling the empty building - which few if any independents could afford to take on - might be just what Bruntsfield currently needs.

That’s better, surely, than such a key local landmark lying empty…?

People are the Blood – Businesses the Heart

Local trade is never easy, Jonathan Chierchia (pictured below) claims it in fact only for the ‘clinically insane’.