Liverpool's longstanding cultural hub LEAF is celebrating 15 years in the business.
LEAF has been a staple of Bold Street ever since it opened back in 2010. The venue welcomes thousands of guests a week and is the flagship business under the family umbrella. Following its runaway success, LEAF went on to open spacious locations on Smithdown Road and West Kirby, a far cry from its humble beginnings in a gallery.
Looking back at where everything began, LEAF's owner Natalie Haywood told the ECHO: "We set up in this small little gallery called Static. I'm not sure anyone even knows it's a thing. I quit coffee and I was tired of paying full price for tea in venues that just gave you a sloppy tea bag and warm water."
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Natalie co-owns LEAF with her brother, Graham Haywood, with them both juggling responsibilities to this day. The idea to bring something new to Liverpool's tea scene was a joint decision that saw the siblings make their first big leap in 2007. She added: "We wanted to create somewhere that was fun and unique to hang out in that also did a really good cup of tea. It's funny to look back and see that nowhere was really tapping into that market – it was all about coffee.
"So we went for it. We basically opened in the gallery with nothing but £5,000 and a trip to Ikea. The space we rented was really small but we were only there for around nine months."
Quickly outgrowing their first home, Natalie and Graham plucked LEAF from the gallery and placed it into a brand new site on Paradise Street in 2008. This is where the LEAF we all know and love today started to take form and the real journey began.
Natalie said: "Back then, there was only really FACT or the Everyman you could go to to hang out and relax. With Everyman's bistro, you could sit for ages with your friends and FACT supplied so much creativity so we wanted to add to that small scene and offer the same but in a different way. That's how we slowly started to incorporate gigs and events so we weren't just a tea shop but that's the direction we always wanted to go in."
Following yet another move in 2010 to Bold Street, a whirlwind few years followed with venues popping up on Smithdown Road in 2019 and another in West Kirby in 2020. LEAF became a hot spot for weary shoppers to reboot and organisations to host events, with some of the world's biggest stars from Eurovision and rap calling in for a quick break – Finnish star Kaarija and the Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA to name drop JUST just two.
Looking to the future, LEAF will soon condense everything it created over its 15-year lifespan to open Little LEAF, a miniature version that will move into the city centre event venue ONE FINE DAY. Natalie aims to deliver the gigs and services LEAF has become synonymous with but on a much smaller scale to see whether or not the company always needs to rely on bigger venues. If things go smoothly, we may see Little LEAF snowball into its own monster.
Natalie said: "Nothing in LEAF has ever changed. We're still very much the small tea store we started as but we're always looking to keep up with the time and try something new. The heart of what we're about has always been there."
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