An Edinburgh poolside café making waves
Coffee, community and public spaces
Glenogle Swim Centre is a Victorian building nestled in a corner of suburban Edinburgh. It has a red exterior. The sun shines through the rooftop windows onto the pool below.
This a well-run leisure centre with a gym, fitness classes, a pool, a sauna and steam room.
In the late 2000s, a local civil society campaign – ‘Save Glenogle Baths’ – prevented a private developer turning the complex into apartments.
We can be thankful to those activists. The UK has a housing shortage but turning an 1898 historic pool into apartments is not the way to do it. Its restoration and survival as a wellness centre make an enormous contribution to the local community.
Sam Machin began working here as a lifeguard here in 2022. In the summer of 2023, he had an idea to build a small café in the corner of the empty balcony, overlooking the pool.
“I had to submit two business proposals with detailed financials to the [centre] manager to fine tune the idea. She liked it and was supportive.”
This is one of a handful of leisure and sporting venues across the city run by Edinburgh Leisure (EL) – an arms-length external organisation (ALEO) of the City of Edinburgh Council.
“I was expecting more barriers than there were. The idea was to open within 9 months.
There were a few things that needed addressed. A health and safety officer came around and identified a fuse box near the café. He needed to make sure I wouldn’t interfere with that nor with anything structural in the building. I needed to make sure insurance covered me [in the event of anything going wrong].”
Upfront costs included furniture, a coffee machine and supporting equipment.
The “Café at Glenogle” opened in April 2024.
Mr Machin pays the venue a monthly fee for rent of the balcony in the same way that a yoga instructor would pay to lease a room in the centre.
That amount is much reduced on a high street comparison and the leisure centre also covers the cost of water and electricity.
That allows Mr Machin to offer coffee at much reduced price to others forking out rent on the high street.
He shows me the numbers – it does well, making enough money for a comfortable living for one person on a four-day working week and 20 hours for someone else.
It is also only open from 08:00 –13:30.
Customers can go to the café without having to be a member of Edinburgh Leisure.
Mr Machin sees it as a ‘third space’ that brings people together. “It encourages people to sit in places and not feel pressure. The best thing is the range of people that come here from all sections of society.”
Sociologist Oldenburg’s third space is neither home (first space) nor work (second space) – but places where people gather and connect.
People can unwind after a class without going somewhere else.
His operations run smoothly – repeat orders from suppliers, steady business from repeat customers. Zettle, a PayPal company, e-tracks his sales. He offers café t-shirts and is eyeing a wider range of products.
Mr Machin says the hardest thing was the uncertainty at the start – not knowing if anyone would show up. He was expecting to run a large social media campaign.
On starting a venture, one can think of many reasons not to take the plunge. Indeed, he pointed to how the building has been open since 1898 and no one had thought to install a café within it.
His success at Glenogle has led to thoughts of opening outlets in other areas, “whilst we still have public spaces.”
One pictures the multiplier effect across the country if such spaces are preserved and such enterprises allowed to flourish.
