Client Stories: Diod Cafe & Wine Bar
Interview with Lisa Jones, founder of DIOD CAFÉ in Llandeilo.
We caught up with Lisa Jones, co-founder of Diod, a coffee and wine shop with a relaxed Scandi-Welsh vibe. Lisa’s latest venture is a 10-staff hospitality business, which required a whole new level of business finance service provision and trusted advice.
When did you start Diod, how did it come about?
Diod started in July 2021, which was a challenging time to start. My and husband and I owned the building and we had a tenant in there and originally the plan was to be landlords. When our tenants handed in their notice this ended up changing!
There was a lot of initial interest in the premises, it’s a central commercial property in Llandeilo. But after doing work on the building we didn’t want to hand the keys back! We always discussed the idea of running our own hospitality business and so took the opportunity to go for it. It was a furniture shop before that, so we put a kitchen in and did a refurb in 2021.
Switch to present day and we’re doing well. We had a good first summer in 2021 and Christmas, despite Covid. There was a little bit of the unknown of course and we’re still working hard on planning our footfall. We are lucky, we have a good local customer base, which we hope to boost in tourism season.
In terms of Diod, we serve the best quality coffee, cakes and light snacks! Diod also has a wonderful wine and local beer selection, which is available to drink in or take away by the bottle, alongside gifts and local produce. We put on themed nights, the most recent one was a really successful Sushi evening.
Aled and I love supporting local producers like fresh artisan Hathren Brownies baked fresh to order in a farmhouse near Lampeter and Crwst doughnuts in Cardigan, which arrive on a Friday at 11am and sell out, sometimes within half an hour! Using local companies and stockists is hugely important to us.
Diod employs 90% Welsh-speaking staff and we like to share the food producer stories with clientele. Our roots are local, mine are in Devil’s Bridge and Aled’s are in Pumpsaint, not far away. We’ve been here in Llandeilo since 2010 and it’s very much home.
When did you join LHP, how have they helped?
We’ve been clients of LHP since 2014, and so we used LHP for our latest venture too. I previously ran a marketing consultancy and my husband still runs his enterprise Ar Y Tir/On The Land. My focus is now Diod, although I do keep my hand in.
The jump from self-employment to staff employment, with payroll and VAT returns was a steep learning curve, as well as the challenges that come with renovating a building, We quickly transitioned from just ourselves to 10 employees open 7 days a week. LHP helped us with this.
Before Diod, we used LHP for our year-end accounts. LHP now does all of our payroll, business structuring, tax, cloud payment integrations and VAT. We use much more of their wide-ranging expertise. Since Diod, we’ve really learned what’s on offer.
LHP set up our till system for example, their cloud team helped us with that and our training in Xero, which gave us a whole different level of accounting to our previous software, which was no longer fit for purpose. Xero is definitely the best fit for our growing hospitality business.
What are the key benefits since joining LHP?
I would say the biggest benefits of LHP are their range of specialisms under one roof, cloud platinum expertise, speed of service and personal touch.
The wide range of services. Knowing who to call. Janet Collins is our main accountant, Kay Augustus in payroll/pensions and Sam Hart in cloud accounts, they’ve all been fantastic! Having personal relationships across the wider range of Welsh-speaking staff is a key attraction.
How would you describe LHP in 3 words?
Approachable, Professional, Welsh.
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