Eugene Rea

My grandfather was an immigrant from Cassino in Italy in the early 1900s. He arrived and started by pushing an ice cream cart up Redcar beach. By the 1940s he had 4 coffee bars in the north east.

It’s worth noting that at the time Italy was practically a third world economy and they could only afford to import third rate coffee beans. That’s what spurred the development of the espresso machine in Italy – to get the best from poor quality beans.

My dad, on returning from fighting the Germans, took over the business and by 1965 Reas had 22 cafes and espresso bars, an icecream factory and bakery.

I started working in one of our espresso bars on Saturdays at the age of 13.

Eventually I moved to London to do my design degree and then moved to Sydney where I ran my own brand design and marketing agencies.

I returned to the UK 12 years ago.