Over ten years of bikes, coffee, friendship and community. Now we need your help to keep it going.
After more than a decade in Southbourne, we've been given notice that we must leave our home by March 2027.
It's not how we imagined things would turn out, particularly after recently committing to another ten-year lease and investing so much in the future of the business.
But we're determined that this won't be the end of Velo Domestique.
We're hoping to raise £100,000–£150,000 to help us find a new home, rebuild and keep doing what we love. We're exploring community crowdfunding alongside potential private investment, and we're still working out exactly what that will look like.
Before we ask for your support, though, we'd like to tell you a little about how we got here, what Velo Domestique means to us, and why we believe it's worth saving.
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It all started with bringing people together.
Before there was a cafe, a bike shop, or even a Velo Domestique, there was an idea.
An idea that cycling could be about something more than sport, performance, expensive equipment and Lycra. That riding a bike could be a way of experiencing the world around you, connecting with people and simply enjoying getting from A to B.
Having spent time living in Den Haag in the Netherlands, I wanted to bring some of that everyday cycling culture back to Bournemouth. The freedom of getting around by bike, chatting with friends as you ride, stopping for a coffee and discovering somewhere new.
I'd always loved organising events and bringing people together, so it seemed like a natural place to start.
On 25th April 2014, we held our first event under the name Velo Sur Mer (Bike on Sea): The South Coast Shuffle.
It was an alleycat-style race, where local knowledge, navigation and a little competitive spirit mattered just as much as speed. It wasn't about who had the most expensive bike or the fanciest kit. It was about getting people together, having some fun and enjoying a drink afterwards.
That first event became a series of monthly rides and races. They were free, or we charged just enough to print the posters and flyers for the next one.
People started coming back. Friendships formed, groups grew, and before long we had something that felt like a proper community.
Some of those people are still riding together today.
Finding a home
After almost a year of organising events, we wanted to give this growing community somewhere to call home.
Towards the end of 2014, with the help of my girlfriend (now wife) Jenny, her family, our friends and the cycling community we'd brought together, we built our first pop-up cafe in Boscombe.
Velo Domestique was born.
We collaborated with the original founders of Boscanova, who have since gone on to establish Bad Hand Coffee.
It was a pretty DIY affair, and we certainly didn't have much money.
One of my favourite memories is of Jacob Smith turning up while we were fitting out the shop and simply starting to sweep the floor. We explained that we couldn't afford to pay him, but he told us he just wanted to see it happen and was happy to help.
He became the first person to join our team.
That spirit has been at the heart of Velo ever since.
We also formed our own cycling crew, KYCU Velo, supported by the then locally founded Jimmy's Iced Coffee. We travelled around the UK and Europe racing bikes, representing our little corner of the South Coast and the community we'd built.
Unfortunately, our first home was never going to last.
After four brilliant months, the developers moved in and demolished our little cafe with a JCB to make way for new shops.
The rides continued, the friendships continued, but for a while our community was without a home.
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Southbourne
After months of searching, we found somewhere new.
Southbourne was already home to Jenny and me, and it felt like the right place to put down roots.
At the time, the high street was home to The Larder House, Deli Rocks, a handful of independent shops, charity shops and a rather large empty pub on the corner.
We loved the area. Close to the sea, a short ride from the forest, with a train station nearby and views across the bay towards the Isle of Purbeck.
We started with around £20,000 of savings and an awful lot of enthusiasm. We did as much of the work ourselves as we possibly could, helped once again by friends, family and people who wanted to see Velo Domestique happen.
What we discovered very quickly was that Southbourne was special.
People genuinely cared about their local independent businesses. They sought them out, supported them and wanted them to succeed.
From the moment we opened, we felt that support.
Cyclists travelled from across the UK and further afield to visit us because we were a cycle cafe. In return, we got to introduce them to Southbourne, somewhere we were incredibly proud to call home.
Over the years, Velo grew from a little cycle cafe into something much bigger than we'd originally imagined.
More than just a cafe
We have always believed that the best things we can offer are the things you can't get on the internet.
You can't email someone a breakfast burrito. You can't drink a flat white over WhatsApp. And you can't experience the feeling of riding through the forest with a group of friends from behind a laptop.
In a world where more and more of our lives are spent online, we believe physical spaces, real experiences and genuine human connections are becoming more important than ever.
That's what we've always tried to create at Velo Domestique.
Over the past decade, we've organised hundreds of rides, races, events and get-togethers. Some have been silly, some competitive, and some have made a real difference to people's lives.
We've organised Bike Bestival twice, with over 100 riders raising a combined £35,000 for the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably).
For the past four years, we've also organised Cycle to We Out Here, bringing people together to ride to the festival and helping to raise £43,000 for different charities along the way.
We've run Cranksgiving Bournemouth for more than ten years, including the years when we didn't even have a cafe to host it and even a socially distanced Covid edition, collecting tonnes of food for local charity Hope for Food.
We've worked alongside Brother Cycles on Brother in the Wild Dorset since its beginnings in 2017, helping to bring riders together for a weekend of bikes, camping, food and friendship.
And through our little blue caravan, we've taken Velo Domestique on the road for the past eight years, more recently serving speciality coffee at festivals including We Out Here and End of the Road.
Our bike shop has grown alongside the cafe, with a particular passion for bikes that are actually used every day, in particular cargo bikes and adventure bicycles.
We've built relationships with brands we genuinely believe in, including Brother Cycles, Omnium and Larry vs Harry.
But perhaps more importantly, we've always tried to make cycling welcoming.
If your bike matters to you, it matters to us.
It doesn't matter what you ride, what you wear or how fast you go.
The same philosophy applies to our coffee.
Over the years, we've brought some of the UK's and Europe's most exciting roasters to Southbourne, including DAK, Ozone, Round Hill and our current house roaster, Hard Lines.
We've always wanted to share our enthusiasm for brilliant coffee without making anyone feel they need to know anything about it before walking through the door.
Whether you want to talk about brewing methods and espresso extraction or simply want a really good flat white, everyone is welcome.
That's what Velo Domestique is about.
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The difficult years
Of course, it hasn't all been plain sailing.
Shortly after our fourth birthday, Covid-19 turned the hospitality industry upside down.
Almost overnight, we went from running a busy cafe and bike shop to navigating lockdowns, changing regulations and enormous uncertainty for our team and our customers.
Like so many independent businesses, we had to find ways to adapt.
We delivered breakfast burritos by bike, launched a coffee subscription service and even transformed our temporarily empty cafe into Lockdown Community Radio, a community radio project supporting local musicians and businesses.
We also opened a second site in Bournemouth town centre, an ambitious project that unfortunately became a casualty of the pandemic's devastating impact on the town centre. After just over a year, we made the difficult decision to close it.
Those years were exhausting, but we came through them thanks to the determination of our team and the extraordinary support of our customers.
We continued to invest in what we knew how to do best: good food, exceptional coffee, a welcoming space and a bike shop that genuinely cares about the people who walk through its doors.
The years since Covid have brought their own challenges.
Rising food prices, energy costs, wages and the cost-of-living crisis have put enormous pressure on independent hospitality businesses and the customers who support them.
We've had to adapt, make difficult decisions and work harder than ever to keep improving.
But we've also continued to invest in our equipment, our team and the long-term future of Velo Domestique.
We have never wanted to build a chain of cafes.
We've always wanted Velo Domestique to become an institution.
Somewhere that feels like it belongs to the people who use it. Somewhere you can bring your children, meet your friends, get your bike fixed or simply enjoy a coffee and watch the world go by.
Some of our team have been with us for years. You probably know them by name. You might even have a T-shirt with their face on it.
That's the sort of business we want to keep building.
Where we are today
Despite the challenges of recent years, Velo Domestique has continued to grow and evolve into a business we're incredibly proud of.
During 2025, we invested significantly in the cafe infrastructure, our equipment, our team and renewing the lease itself, making improvements that we hoped would help secure Velo's future for many years to come.
Over the past year, we've continued to build on that investment, making changes to how we work and finding ways to run the business more efficiently, while continuing to focus on what matters most to us: good food, great coffee and looking after the people who visit us.
And it's working. We've had a particularly encouraging year of trading, with improvements in both turnover and profitability. We're beginning to see the benefits of all the hard work and investment we've put into Velo.
Unfortunately, things haven't quite worked out as we'd hoped.
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An unexpected turn
In early 2025, after a long and expensive process, we agreed a new ten-year lease on our Southbourne home.
We believed this would give us the security to continue investing in the space, our team and our future on the high street.
However, the lease included a probate break clause insisted upon by our landlord's family, allowing our landlords to bring the tenancy to an end with six months' notice following the grant of probate.
Following the death of our original landlady, ownership passed to her family.
Following the renewal of our lease, concerns were raised by our landlords about fire safety requirements relating to the residential accommodation above the cafe. In an effort to resolve these concerns, we commissioned an independent fire risk assessment at our own expense and carried out improvements to the property.
Despite our efforts to resolve the situation, our landlords subsequently decided to exercise the break clause.
Our landlords then confirmed that they were satisfied with the work and would no longer pursue the related enforcement action.
However, they also decided to exercise the break clause.
This means that, after more than ten years, we have been told we must leave our home in Southbourne by spring 2027.
On top of the considerable disruption and cost of relocating, we're also facing a substantial claim for our landlords' legal costs relating to a dispute we had made considerable efforts to resolve. We believe these costs are unreasonable and are currently challenging them with professional advice.
We had spent years building a business and community around this space, and had only recently committed to another decade there.
To lose it now is incredibly difficult. It is a special place to us; team members have celebrated marriages here, babies have been introduced and grown up in this building, some amazing parties have been had and stories shared.
But we don't believe this should be the end of Velo Domestique.
The next chapter
We started Velo with around £20,000, a lot of help from our friends and a belief that we could create something worthwhile.
More than a decade later, we still believe in that idea.
The difference is that we now have an established business, an incredible team, thousands of customers and a community that has helped make Velo what it is today.
We want to find a new home where we can continue doing everything that makes Velo special.
A home for our cafe, kitchen, bike shop, rides, events and all the people who have supported us over the years.
We also want to use this opportunity to improve.
A better-designed kitchen, more efficient equipment, a more sustainable operating model and a space that will allow us to keep delivering the food, coffee and service we're proud of.
We're not looking to become something different.
We're looking to give Velo Domestique the chance to keep being Velo Domestique.
But relocating an established hospitality business in 2026 is a very different proposition from opening a little cafe with our savings more than ten years ago.
And this time, we need your help.
What do we need?
We're hoping to raise between £100,000 and £150,000 to fund our relocation and give Velo the best possible chance of a sustainable future.
Our estimated costs are:
New kitchen – £40,000–£60,000: Installing a fully equipped kitchen, including extraction, and improving the workflow and efficiency of our food operation.
Installation and refurbishment – £20,000–£35,000: Adapting a new premises to our needs. As with previous projects, we'll do as much of the work ourselves as possible, but specialist work such as electrical and gas installations needs professional contractors.
Supporting our team – £10,000–£25,000: We expect there may be a period when we cannot trade at full capacity. One of our biggest priorities is to retain as much of our existing team as possible during the transition.
Legal costs – £30,000: Covering the costs associated with leaving our current premises, addressing the legal matters surrounding our departure and securing a new lease.
We know this is a significant amount of money.
But it's also an opportunity to build a more efficient, resilient business, one that can continue contributing to Southbourne and the wider Bournemouth community for many years to come.
We're still exploring the best way to raise the funds we need, and that may involve a combination of community crowdfunding and private investment. We're also open to conversations with people who might be interested in investing in Velo Domestique and becoming part of its future through an equity stake in the business.
Whatever route we take, we'd like to give something back to the community that's supported us for more than ten years.
One option we're exploring is a rewards-based crowdfunding campaign, where people can contribute towards finding Velo Domestique a new home and receive something special in return.
We're putting together a few different rewards, including a Velo Domestique mug, tote bag and T-shirt. But we'd like these to mean a little more than just merchandise.
Depending on the reward you choose, you'll also receive a 10% lifetime discount on drinks, retail coffee or food at Velo Domestique. A small way for us to say thank you, not just now, but every time you come back to visit us.
There'll be different ways to get involved, whether you want to make a small contribution, pick up one of our reward bundles or simply support the campaign without receiving anything in return.
We're still working out the finer details of how the fundraising will work, and we'll share more information about the options and rewards as our plans develop.
Our hope is that, with the support of the community that's helped us build Velo Domestique, alongside anyone who might want to invest in its future, we can give it the best possible chance of finding a new home and continuing for many years to come.
This isn't the end of the story.
When we started organising bike rides in 2014, we had no idea where it would take us.
We certainly didn't imagine that a little cycling event would turn into a cafe, a bike shop, a team of brilliant people, years of friendships and a community that means so much to us.
Velo Domestique has always been built on people helping people.
From visiting our first pop-up, to friends helping us build the cafe, to everyone who has bought a coffee, joined a ride, donated to Cranksgiving, brought their bike in for repair or simply told a friend about us.
You've all helped make Velo Domestique what it is.
And now we're asking for your help to build its next chapter.
We don't want to say goodbye to Velo Domestique. We want to invite you to become part of its future.
Thank you for being part of the journey so far.
Dan and The Velo Domestique team