Tuesday 19 May 2026 2:03 pm
| Updated:
Tuesday 19 May 2026 2:04 pm
Gabriel Shohet founded Black Sheep Coffee with university flatmate Eirik Holth
Black Sheep Coffee was founded in the Square Mile but has now expanded across the world. Its co-founder tells Felix Armstrong about his roots in the CityGabriel Shohet is a company man. The Black Sheep Coffee founder enters the meeting room at the coffee chain’s Southwark offices clad in a branded hoodie, with a Black Sheep takeaway cup and waffle in hand, and marvels at the latte art on the coffee I am handed by his employee: “You should take a photo of that for the article!”But Shohet quickly becomes more reflective when asked to explain the beginnings of his coffee shop empire: “It was tough, man. We didn’t have any money.”Shohet founded Black Sheep Coffee in 2013 along with Eirik Holth, who was his flatmate at the University of St Andrews. The pair scraped together £23,000 on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, and launched their range of Robusta coffee, before setting up at high streets and roundabouts in London with rented coffee machines. “We would just rock up with an espresso machine on rental and a trestle table and pumps and stuff and wastewater tanks and just make coffee out on the street for folks,” Shohet explains.
