The Coffee Academy Serving Up Career Paths

“I’ve been told a lot that this is the best coffee on this street,” says Sana Pishgoo, owner of Shiraz Patisserie in north London. “I’ve also been told I have the best Iranian cakes in London.”

A skilled pastry chef and cake maker, Pishgoo, 45, set up her business in 2021. She named it after her home city of Shiraz, located in the southwest of Iran and known as the center of the ancient Persian civilization.

It was also where she once ran her own cafe, living an idyllic life with her husband and young daughter. She was known for being the first woman to apply for a cafe license in the city, as at the time, it was only something men could do.

Sana Pishgoo’s Shiraz Patisserie has become a neighborhood favorite as well as the go-to for London’s Iranian community. Courtesy of Sana Pishgoo

That life came crumbling down when Pishgoo and her husband divorced in 2013. Her husband was given automatic custody of her daughter, as was the law in Iran, and he did not allow Pishgoo to contact or see her daughter for six months.

After a lengthy legal battle, and agreeing to forfeit any payouts from the divorce, Pishgoo was able to regain custody of her daughter. Fearing future challenges from her ex-husband, Pisghoo fled to the U.K. as a refugee in 2015.

“I was devastated by what happened, and panicked that it could happen again, so we left everything behind,” she says.

As a refugee, Pishgoo was able to gain access to free training courses and completed chef, pastry chef, cake decorating and sourdough bread making qualifications. She eventually got a job at a bakery in east London, only to be laid off during the Covid pandemic in 2020.

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Eager to be helpful, her bakery boss recommended another free training program she could undertake, this time, in how to make coffee. It was a skill Pishgoo had only picked up on the job, and not one she had formally learned.

She applied, and got in, to a barista training course at Well Grounded, a social enterprise that equips unemployed people for jobs within the coffee industry. The course teaches people not just to make coffee, but highlights other career opportunities across the industry, like sourcing and selling coffee beans, or becoming a coffee grader.

It also includes shifts at real cafes and the chance to apply for jobs within Well Grounded’s network of partner employers.

Pishgoo is a skilled pastry chef and cake maker. Credit: Mehran Torkzadehtabrizi

The Well Grounded course gave Pishgoo the knowledge, skills and confidence to go back to her roots. She was ready to become a cafe owner once again, using her savings and leaning into the support of friends.

“I properly learned how to make coffee, but I also learned how to be confident as a business owner, and that if you have a dream, you can achieve it,” says Pishgoo.

Now, Shiraz Patisserie has become a neighborhood favorite as well as the go-to for London’s Iranian community, thanks to her love of baking authentic Persian sweets, like nokodchi chickpea cookies, kolompeh date and walnut cookies, and pistachio cookies.

Pishgoo is one of the 1,200 people Well Grounded has trained since it launched 10 years ago out of an east London cafe. Now, it runs training academies in London, Bristol and Leeds, with 77 percent of graduates moving into sustained work or further training and education.

The organization also offers higher-level courses for people wanting to take their coffee careers further, and they’re all free, thanks to a mix of corporate and government support.

Eve Wagg is Well Grounded’s founder and CEO, a sales manager turned charity consultant. It had long been her dream to turn her love of coffee into a social enterprise, and she saw a need to combine practical training with clear career pathways supported by a community.

Now, Well Grounded has become a key piece in helping solve the U.K.’s growing unemployment puzzle. The country’s unemployment rate has been steadily climbing since 2022, and last December, it reached the highest rate in five years. It’s currently around five percent, compared with 4.3 percent in the U.S.

“We hear time and time again that our academies are a safe space to learn for people who may have been out of work or learning for a while, that it’s a really accepting and special environment where people can spend the time to figure out their next steps,” says Wagg.

There can be misconceptions about how much skill is actually required to work with specialty coffee, Wagg adds. Specialty coffee is made from coffee beans which score 80 or higher on a 100-point scale of quality, which usually requires being farmed and processed with a high level of care.

Well Grounded founder and CEO Eve Wagg had long dreamed of turning her love of coffee into a social enterprise. Courtesy of Well Grounded

It’s proving increasingly popular with coffee drinkers: According to a National Coffee Association report, 46 percent of American adults had specialty coffee in the past day, up 84 percent since 2011.

“Working within specialty coffee requires a huge amount of skill, and due to the current economic climate, people hiring an entry-level barista are asking for a lot of experience,” says Wagg.

“With the growth in specialty coffee shops, there’s a higher expectation from the customer, too, especially with the rising cost of a cup of coffee. So from our point of view, this is a highly skilled profession, with a huge demand.”

For Abdul Hasib, 25, getting a job has been anything but straightforward. When his mom was diagnosed with thyroid cancer 10 years ago, he stepped up to become her carer, accompanying her to medical appointments, supporting her during her many surgeries and helping tend to her afterwards.

Giving his all to his high school studies at the time was out of the question, and attending college was out of reach. Being close to his mom, he felt a sense of responsibility towards her, but as her health improved, she began encouraging him to start living his own life.

Everything changed for Abdul Hasib when his brother spotted a digital flyer for Well Grounded. Courtesy of Abdul Hasib

However, with no work experience, and having spent years confined within a bubble of only family and medical professionals, Hasib found he lacked the basic skills to apply for even entry-level roles. He sent out about 100 unsuccessful applications.

Everything changed when Hasib’s brother spotted a digital flyer for Well Grounded on WhatsApp and suggested he apply. He completed the program last year and found work at The Exchange Hub in north west London, a community hub with a cafe. Hasib now works there three days a week, so he can still support his mom.

“I’ve been running the coffee bar on my own, which the training gave me the skills and confidence to do,” says Hasib. “It’s so community-focused here, and everyone is included. Even if someone is struggling financially, they can still enjoy what’s happening here and feel a unique connection with people.”

“I’ve had a lot of changes in my life, but now I feel I can actually help the people around me. You need to experience stuff to really test you, and make the uncomfortable comfortable, then going forward, it’s only going to bring you strength.”

Back at Shiraz Patisserie, Pishgoo is dreaming up her next cake combination, as she’s developed a flair for developing Iranian and European fusion recipes. Customers have snapped up her recent creations, a black sesame tea and tahini cake, a barberry and saffron cake, while her pistachio and chocolate ganache cake is a constant best seller.

Meanwhile, her daughter, who is now studying at Oxford University, has requested a mango cake for her birthday. Her daughter, and her business, are Pishgoo’s biggest achievements.

“I may not have the perfect decor, but I know my cakes, and my coffee, are good,” she says.

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