Couple turn horsebox into Coffi Box café on Cold Knap, Barry

The Coffi Box, located at Cold Knap on Park Road opened two months ago and has since been a successful business.

Richard and Zoey Bailey have lived in Barry for 22 years, came up with the idea after seeing a horse box wine bar at a Christmas fayre a few years ago.

Rich, a firefighter, is delighted with how their business has turned out and is optimistic about the future.

Richard Bailey (Image: Richard Bailey)

BEFORE: This is what the old horse box looked like before renovations. Picture: Richard Bailey

The father of four said: “I have served in the army and coming to the end of my career as a firefighter and Zoey recently graduated from uni but chose not to pursue a career in her field.

“My wife and I loved the horse box wine bar we saw, so we talked about doing something similar with tea and coffee.

“We were having a bottle of wine in October last year and saw a run-down horse box on eBay, so we bought it and went to Plymouth to pick it up.

“One of the wheels caught fire on the way home so we knew it was a lot of work ahead, but we wanted to do something different and built it from a rusty old frame.”

Renovation works to convert the rusty old frame into the café took seven months and has been up and running since July 1.

Richard Bailey (Image: Richard Bailey)

AFTER: How the coffi box looks after renovations. Picture: Richard Bailey 

The former horse box serves barista coffee, tea, hot chocolate, cakes, savouries, ice cream, frappes, smoothies, and provides a dairy free milk alternative soya or oat with no extra cost.

Mr and Mrs Bailey support small businesses by only using local businesses to supply them with the goods, the mini café is already a hit with the local community.

Mr Bailey added: “Its so hard to judge its success in a couple of months, but I will say it is becoming the place to go, people love it, and we have a lot of visitors.

“We will look at it after 12 months to see if it has achieved what we hoped it would, but so far it has definitely over exceeded our expectations when doing our original business plan.”

The family chose the pebble beach spot after seeing an advert for the Cold Knap concession and it is a family favourite location.

Richard Bailey (Image: Richard Bailey)

Inside the newly converted Coffi Box Cafe. Picture: Richard Bailey

He added: “We wanted to be here because its where our children have learned to ride bikes and rollerskates over here.

“It’s a dream come true as it is a place that means so much to us and we have made a lot of our family memories here.”