For the Love of Family, Community, and Great Coffee

To call Kiera and Marc Shaw busy is an understatement. The couple juggles a bustling neighbourhood café, a coffee roastery, three young children, and a handful of animals, on a daily basis. But then again, the pair seems to thrive with their hands full.  Within the first year of returning to Marc’s hometown of Nelson from Byron Bay, and while expecting their third child, Kiera and Marc took on the lease to what is now one of the busiest cafés in the Nelson Tasman region: Bobby Franks.

‘When we saw this space we knew straight away that it was very special’, Kiera remembers of their first visit to the 150-year old building that their café now inhabits. The couple did all the fit-out for Bobby Franks themselves, drawing inspiration from their favourite spots across the Tasman Sea, and naming it after their two oldest children. Proven to be exactly what the neighbourhood was after, Bobby Franks has seen a constant stream of customers from day one.

Kiera and Marc have both worked in hospitality for a number of years and Marc began roasting beans ten years ago. These days, Kiera works behind the counter at the Nelson café and Marc focuses on roasting for Soul Arch, the product of a life-long dream of starting his own roastery. Soul Arch is set up in a shipping container on the couple’s lifestyle property, where Marc roasts whenever he gets a chance while caring for the kids.

Kiera and Marc have an incredible just-go-for-it attitude to life that is truly inspiring. Full of positivity and entrepreneurship, they’ve provided a place for the community to come together at Bobby Franks, while following their dreams and creating a lifestyle that works for the whole family.