Kaffeine Legend - Josephine 'Josie' Snee
In April 2013, we started looking for a person to start on service. The period of 2012 to 2013 was massive for Kaffeine, in fact it was massive for the whole London specialty industry. We were super, super busy, busier even than we are now and London was just recovering and in the glow of the Olympics success. It was magical.
Of course we had a few applications, but one that stood out the best was a young lady who was ‘fresh off the boat’ from Queensland, the Gold Coast in fact. She had worked a bit as a waitress in some five star hotels there. Historically, we have had some amazing staff work for us previously and some are with us today who are from Queensland, so that was already a good start. She was 2o years old, with a Swiss heritage so had an EU passport.
Josie left us in June of this year, after 5 years of working at Kaffeine. Five years. To say she is a legend of Kaffeine is quite an understatement, because the influence she has had, the standards she has set, the personality she brought and the care and attention she showed the business, our customers and her colleagues was incredible.
As per fairly normal standards, Josie moved up from being on service to a senior service level, then to assistant manager and finally to senior assistant manager. She was offered the role of manager in 2017 but declined, as she knew she was going to be leaving soon and going back to Australia. She could work in the kitchen, work on service, work in functions and events and make very, very good coffee. Josie was the last one of the original crew of people from that period that were working upstairs, including former manager Claire ‘Brice’ Brice’, Shaun ‘Estate Dairy’ Young, Jess ‘Talbs’ Talbot and Karolina ‘Special K’ Malinoska.
She has seen our Layla go from being a 2 year old in a buggy to a little girl of 8, and our Christian from a baby to a little boy of 5 years old and was a huge influence in the development and success of our second store that we opened in 2015 on Eastcastle street.
We worked out that over 5 years, she had probably served or been in contact with over half a million people that have come in through the doors of Kaffeine.
In May of this year, I was under the counter on a Friday morning, changing the power boards that were short circuiting and sending small electric shocks through the cash register and the grinders. Josie was managing and I had inadvertently turned off the wifi, the credit card machine and the till. Suddenly Josie leaned underneath the counter and said to me “Peter, David Beckham is here”.
I stood up and yes there he was. He ordered a coffee, had to pay cash because our tills were down and Josie was on milk and was the first person to pour him a coffee in our store. Half an hour later he posted our cup on his instagram stories to over 50,000,000 of his followers. The one that Josie made. He is now a regular customer.
I am literally crying as I write this because I miss her a lot. I can only apologise that I did not write this sooner. I had known that the day was coming that she would say to me “Peter I need to talk to you’ and we would sit down and she would tell me she was leaving. I had prepared myself for it.
Josie left with her boyfriend Matt back in June of this year to go travelling for 8 weeks, then head back to the Gold Coast and to see what happens and where life takes her. I am very, very sure that it will take her a long way.
Josephine ‘Josie’ Snee – Kaffeine Legend and Superstar
April 2013 to June 2018
