We chat with Karl Purdy, Founder and MD of Coffeeangel. Before launching Coffeeangel, Karl was an aspiring photojournalist. Returning to Belfast in 1995 (after 20 years in Canada) to cover the first IRA ceasefire, following an uncomfortable run-in with loyalist paramilitaries, Karl found himself opening Belfast (and Ireland’s) first specialty coffee shop in 1997.
It was an unexpected and overnight success. Unbeknownst at the time, this little shop ultimately launched today’s Irish specialty coffee scene. Relocating to Dublin in 2000 and starting again from scratch, Karl opened a little, three-wheeled coffee cart on Howth’s East Pier in 2004. On its first day Coffeeangel served 150 coffees. Seventeen years later Coffeeangel now has five locations across Dublin city centre, a thriving ecommerce & wholesale business. Having served well over one million cups of delicious coffee, Karl and the team at Coffeeangel remain laser-focused on providing a world class product, efficiently and consistently with genuinely Irish customer service at the heart of it all.
The Irish Tech News Podcast