Celebrating Laneway's 10th Anniversary

Freshly returned from Australia and inspired by its coffee culture, Nick decided to take a leap and create his own coffee shop in the city centre 10 years ago. These days Newcastle is teeming with great independents, but choices were few and far between when Nick set up shop. ‘There was only really Pink Lane who had a year or two under their belt at that point. Ouseburn Coffee were around too, but that was it really,’ he says.

Looking back, Nick makes repeated reference to the importance of efficiency and consistency. True to form, the first iteration of Laneway was a small, streamlined operation with a sparse food offering and an emphasis on good quality coffee. Covid was a major turning point for Laneway, as for so many independents, and for Nick it was time to sink or swim. A quick pivot, refocus and expansion helped keep Laneway going.

‘We changed around the way the business operated in that space and we set up an actual kitchen downstairs and we took a little leap in terms of food,’ he explains. Laneway took over the adjacent unit and developed their food offering, slowly becoming a go-to destination for brunch and lunch. A year and a half after expanding the menu, Nick took another leap and opened a second location in Tynemouth in 2025. Though it may have looked like it was all plain-sailing from the outside, Nick’s journey was one of slow persistence, and the recent pressures on the hospitality industry have proven to be one of Laneway’s hardest challenges yet.

‘It was a real slow burn trying to cement our reputation and I think that was probably the right thing to do. Once the opportunity to expand came about, the trajectory has been quite steep,’ says Nick. ‘This is definitely the toughest I’ve ever had it in the 10 years we’ve been open.’ On the surface, he explains, it’s easy to assume that a busy business is a thriving one, but that’s not always the case.

There are no easy solutions, but for Nick a calm consistency and faith in your team is essential. ‘There [were] definitely points in the first six years of the business where I could have easily just packed it in because it wasn’t making any money, it was losing money, or it was just too stressful for what we were getting out of it,’ he says. ‘Obviously expanding at a time like this is probably way more risky than it would be normally. I think it’s a time when you want to be focusing on the operations that you have, trying to make them as efficient as possible, not forgetting why you’re doing it, and not forgetting to maintain that level of consistency for the customer.’

Nick is an expert when it comes to finding the balance between efficiency and creativity, which he values for the sake of his team. ‘Hospitality can be a transient sort of industry, so we are trying to keep our staff engaged in what they’re doing,’ he says, which has inspired the new Friday and Saturday evening service in the original city centre location. ‘It was something we’ve had in the works for quite a while,’ says Nick, explaining that a new general manager and chef with experience at Ouseburn’s Kiln gave them the scope to experiment. ‘I would say to be fair to Kiln, it’s the only venue in Newcastle that’s really nailed a morning to night operation and maintained a really high quality. So having that experience to bring into our evenings was the only reason we could do it.’

The evening service offers an eclectic array of small plates alongside natural wines and small snacks in the relaxed comfort of Laneway’s pared-back space. ‘Really for us, it’s a cool thing to do and something you see in other cities, cafés using their space outside usual hours and trying to do something a bit different,’ he explains. ‘It’s fairly common to see in London and Manchester but nowhere has stepped into it in Newcastle yet. Also, it’s a source of creativity for our staff. It’s trying to make sure your staff are still engaged in the business and still creatively satisfied.’

Despite how busy Nick is, stop by either location on any given day and, more often than not, you’ll find him behind the counter making cracking cups of coffee. ‘I think being involved day to day in the cafés is really important,’ he says. ‘Through working in each café and doing actual shifts there, you can see how it’s being managed, how everyone is working and if there’s any issues.

‘From my point of view, the reason we were able to get to this point anyway was through focusing as much on the quality of the product as the consistency of it. It’s just persisting and having faith that what you’re doing is the right thing – consistency matters more than anything in a café.’

To keep up with the latest from Laneway & Co, visit lanewaycoffee.co.uk or follow them on Instagram @lanewaycoffeeco.