It's my first business and I love what I do says cafe owner

The Cabin Cafe in Kingswinford is one place which has developed a large following and a great reputation of both service and food and sees a constant flow of people visiting its location on Dawley Brook Road, located next to an industrial estate.

Just walking up to the cafe, which is set in an old metal storage container and has a table outside, you are instantly hit by the smells of frying bacon and sausage and boiling coffee and tea and left with a mouth watering in anticipation.

There has been a cafe on the site for more than 20 years, but the current owner Dino Koumides and his team have been the reason behind its current success, having run the cafe for seven years.

Mr Koumides said running a cafe hadn't been something he'd looked at doing previously, but after 20 years in the corporate world, decided to try something new.

He said: "I'd never worked in the service industry before and had worked in the corporate world as a business development manager for 20-odd years for a number of different companies.

"What I found was that I was getting fed up of working for other people and decided I wanted to do something for myself, so I saw this place and I just thought 'why not?'

"I though I'd give it a go as it's really close to my home and it was a good chance to try something for myself and earn my own money."

Mr Koumides said that when he had bought the lease and taken over, he felt the place was a bit dingy and while it was a running business, it wasn't turning over the sort of profit that it could.

He said that when he took over, he started making some changes around the menu and how he supplied the food.

He said: "When you run a cafe like this, it's all about the food and that has to be right, so the first thing I did was change the sausages and the bacon that was being used, stopped using cheap bread and began to improve the sandwiches.

"The food is all locally sourced from a local supplier and the bread comes from a local bakery, so we've made those changes.

"A lot of the regular customers were surprised to see a man take over the cafe as they'd expected a woman to be running it, but the reception has been very good and when we changed the menu, they said they liked it and kept coming back."

The menu itself offers all types of breakfast sandwich, as well as a breakfast wrap, plus a large mixture of cold and hot sandwiches, burgers and jacket potatoes and three very reasonably priced breakfasts with lots of different items included.

For Mr Koumides, the food quality is one thing, but he also prided himself and his staff of the warm welcome they provided to all customers.

He said: "We've worked very hard to provide good customer service, we also offer local delivery and we serve very quickly, so you get your sandwich or whatever you have ordered in a few minutes.

"The location does help as we do a lot of business with the industries down here, with a lot of local tradesman being regular customers and with the nearby Pensnett Trading Estate.

"I think a lot of people come as they like the breakfasts, as well as being able to get a good bacon, egg and sausage sandwich on bread which was baked that morning and we do try to keep the prices down to be competitive."

Mr Koumides said he had been there seven years and had no intentions of changing what he was doing, saying that the life change had been entirely worth it.

He said: "It's my first business that I bought for myself and I don't have to answer to anyone.

"We've survived the lockdowns and Covid and come back stronger and we're getting stronger as we go on."