‘I built a coffee roastery from scratch in my garden,’ says Shai Eilon. ‘We started offering passersby a chat and a coffee.’
He his partner, Maya Haiman-Eilon, both 50, live in London and own Mont58 Coffee, a coffee brand offering both an at home and in store coffee experience. They began their journey in 2019 and are now B Corp certified.
‘That’s how it started, following the passion and wanting a change in my life,’ Shai tells Metro.
He’d been drinking coffee from a ‘young age’ and even remembers being excited to get his first home barista machine.
As a pair, they also considered themselves coffee connoisseurs, reading up about it and consuming as many different beans as possible.
So while Shai had a successful career in marketing spanning 20 years, when he felt the urge to do something different, it seemed like a natural fit.
‘I earnt a lot of money, but I wanted balance in my life,’ he says. ‘Having a corporate job sometimes means you don’t see your kids so often and you travel a lot. I wanted to be more present and more healthy.’
The couple first decided to set up shop in their own back yard – literally, with a coffee cabin at the end of their garden, which backs onto a public park.
‘It took time building the cabin but we got there and had a lovely set up, and we started roasting,’ Shai explains.
‘We had a gate to the park, so in 2020 we cut half of the gate and started offering coffee. Suddenly we had a queue of people.’
Mont58 was such a success that the couple soon had to level up, finding a space in Ashford, Kent, for their burgeoning roasting operation.
From the outside, it looks like quite the whirlwind, but Shai planned ahead before quitting his job and fully committing to the business, with six months of savings ready as a safety net. He also began roasting while still employed for a year, which made the transition easier.
Maya kept her job in graphics for a couple of years too, helping to support the family financially during Shai’s career shift while working with him on Mont58 part-time.
‘This was totally the right thing to do because it allowed us to start our business without the immediate stress of supporting the family,’ she says.
Shai and Maya now run their coffee shop full-time, as well as a subscription service allowing customers to order beans for home delivery. They’re currently looking to expand too, with two more sites – also in South East London – planned.
‘We were quite reluctant for a few years to open a “proper” coffee shop but last year finally decided to go for it,’ Maya says.
‘It took a while to find the right place because we also do all the packing and online order prep here, but we fell in love with our Kirkdale shop, in a beautiful listed building a part of the original Sydenham High Street.
‘We are committed to using local suppliers wherever possible so we had our next door neighbour do all the carpentry for us (he is a cabinet maker). We also did a crowdfunding campaign to help with the setup costs and were overwhelmed by the local support.
‘It was exciting and a really great decision as we love being in the shop and getting to know our customers face to face.’
Six years on from taking the leap to launch it, Mont58 Coffee now turns over £500,000 each year, and the couple now employ 18 people in total, some on a freelance.
And year on year, they’ve seen turnover grow by as much as 50% – an upward trend Shai says they’re on track to repeat, if not beat, in the coming year.
Beyond the financials though, Shai was proud as punch to be named one of Small Business Saturday’s top small businesses for 2025.
‘I achieved everything I wanted to achieve when I made the career switch. It’s not always been the easiest, it’s not all rosy and there are challenges,’ he says.
‘For instance, I used to manage a team of people where I could delegate, but now running a small business I wear all the hats and it’s up to me to get all of the things done.
‘You need to like doing, not just instructing, because things only happen when you push for them. Both me and Maya enjoy that and that’s part of the fulfillment for us.’
Shai may have initially needed to take a pay cut from his healthy £150,000 salary to get his business up off the ground, but these days, he’s happier, healthier — and richer in more ways than one.
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.