The two men who revolutionised coffee in South Africa

Peter Howie and Barry Parker brought Seattle, one of South Africa’s biggest coffee franchises, to South Africa. 

Today, Seattle is a South African coffee staple, but its origins go back all the way to London in 1993, when husband and wife, Ally and Scott Svenson, moved to London from Seattle in the United States. 

They missed the Seattle coffee culture so much that they decided to start their own coffee shop, Seattle Coffee Company, which opened its first branch in Covent Garden. 

This store was a combination of the couple’s own ideas, and the same elements that were responsible for Starbucks’ explosive success in America, Howie told Business Insider South Africa. 

The business took off, and by 1997, it had 19 branches across London. 

Howie, who had moved to London after completing his studies to get some work experience, saw an ad for Seattle in a newspaper, which read: “Are you passionate about coffee?” 

His interest was piqued, and with no CV and no prior work experience, he applied for the job, where he ended up working alongside the owners as a novice barista. 

He told World Coffee Portal that his first time working behind the bar was “petrifying”, comparing it to landing on the beaches at Normandy.

However, he quickly became hooked on the energy of the morning rush and the opportunity to interact with customers.

“Something in me just came alive. I realised I had the power to set people’s day on a positive trajectory,” he said.

It wasn’t long before he phoned up Barry Parker, who had been his friend since childhood and told him about Seattle. 

They had always wanted to do “something big” together, and they both knew this was what they had both been looking for. 

Howie and Parker decided to pitch the idea to Scott about bringing Seattle back to South Africa. 

At first, he was not convinced, especially given that Howie and Parker were only 23 years old at the time.

However, at the same time, Fred Withers, the Managing Director of Exclusive Books, was in London looking for a coffee concept to go inside the bookstores back in South Africa. 

He believed that Exclusive Books needed to become a “chill-out” space so that patrons and customers would spend longer in the stores, enjoying the environment while browsing the shelves.

“He was walking in London, he saw the Seattle Coffee Company, which led him to Scott and Ally, which then led him to us,” Parker explained. 

Howie and Parker were granted the rights, and in 1997, the first Seattle opened its doors in South Africa, in Cavendish, Cape Town.  

Parker grew up in a family that worked in franchising and had experience in restaurants. He was even involved with expanding Nando’s in Canada when Howie had called him about Seattle. 

However, for Howie, the transition to business owner wasn’t as easy. 

“It’s quite ironic because I studied a finance degree at Maritzburg University and got into the business and didn’t even know what an income statement was before, but apparently I had passed the exams,” he jokingly told CNBC Africa. 

“When it comes to the financial side, I’m basically useless.”

Howie focused on the products and the people, while Parker focused on the financial and strategic side of the business. 

From the jump, Seattle did things differently than the other coffee shops in South Africa at the time. 

It was the first to offer counter-service coffee, serve coffee in paper cups, and ban smoking in stores, which was very popular during the late ‘90s. 

It was also the first to steam coffee more precisely and to custom-make coffees according to customers’ requests. 

“Within days, based on the customer response, we knew we were onto something good,” Howie explained.

However, it wasn’t long before the pair encountered a major hurdle. 

“So we’ve been at it for about four months and we get a call from Scott and Ally to tell us that they’re selling out the whole business to Starbucks,” Parker said. 

Seattle sold out its 60-store business to Starbucks in the United Kingdom, which meant that Howie and Parker were left to grow the business alone. 

They acquired the company’s Southern Africa naming rights, and from that point on, South Africa became Seattle’s sole market.

During the early 2000s, the company struggled. Finances were tight, the company was scaling, and they were fighting franchisees.

They knew that something needed to change, but they desperately needed an inflow of cash in order to redevelop the business.

That change, they realised, would have to come from their beans.

“Initially, we were bringing coffee from London, and it was sitting in a warehouse,” Howie said. “We could see how the crema would disappear after six weeks, but we couldn’t turn it over any faster.”  

They decided to partner with London-based Union Hand-Roasted Coffee to move the bean-roasting process to South Africa.

“We gained access to farms they had direct trade relationships with. They also helped train our roasters with apprenticeships in London, and the team has been over here to teach as well,” Howie added. 

They also sold some of their shares in Seattle and reinvested that money back into developing the business. 

It came down to brewing fresh coffee, training their staff, and creating a new look and feel for the stores. 

Parker said the day they revamped and reopened the Cavendish store, sales grew by 30%. 

They also paired with Freshstop, Caltex, and later Foodlovers, who bought shares in the company. 

In particular, Howie said the store’s Freshstop partnership has been “amazing”. Putting locations in garages made it much more accessible to customers, who do not have to go to shopping centres to buy Seattle’s products.

“People don’t anticipate that they’re going to get a good quality product in that kind of environment, and we’ve tried to really prove that wrong and align expectations with the fact that you are actually going to get a brilliant product in their environment,” Howie said. 

“It really really helped us find a way much different to the everyday lives of people.”

The coffee store has continued to grow since then, opening an average of 10 new stores a year since its opening and selling over 20 tons of coffee per month. 

Now, with over 200 locations across South Africa, Seattle is one of South Africa’s biggest and most beloved coffee chains. 

“So I guess the key was taking what the smaller guys were doing and scaling that, which is actually a pretty difficult thing to do,” Parker said. 

“It has been and always will be about the way you like it. We’ve really stuck to that,” Howie concluded.