Mike and Keo have run a completely independent small Coffee Shop, Art Gallery and Music Venue, without funded support (except during the pandemic) or external investment for over twelve years. Cwtch is an amalgamated, realised dream of two people from different backgrounds, upbringing, experiences and know how. When Cwtch Coffee opened its doors to the public in April 2013 we knew that much more needed to be done in order to refurbish the basement area for the Art Gallery but we took to it with joy in our hearts and hope for the future. It was suggested by marketing experts that we should target a specific demographic, but over the years , the shop has evolved into a space enjoyed by both the young and the elderly, including their pets. We aimed to create a safe and welcoming space for all.

Cwtch Coffee and community story

Over the years we have hosted not just live music events and exhibition openings but also charity events, fundraisers, book launches and story telling evenings. Cwtch has become a regular meeting place for family gatherings, book clubs, ceramic workshops, knitting enthusiasts, a vegan society and more.

THE SITUATION, WHAT WE NEED AND WHY:

Since the pandemic sustaining live music continues to be incredibly challenging.

The marketplace and the audience perspective has dramatically changed, compounded by the cost of living crisis with declining per head spend, spiraling utility and insurance costs leaves us with increasingly lower margins.

Every penny earned by us over the last twelve years has been invested back into the business. Despite our tireless efforts, the building is now in such need of immediate structural repairs and maintenance that we, as tenants, are unable to shoulder. The only way forward for us is to purchase the building and to carry out the repairs over a period of time.

We have always been a rare breed of independent and self-sustainable coffee shop, music and events venue. We have weathered many a crisis without external investment or funding. But today we are reaching out to those who are a part of our community, who love music and enjoy our cultural events. We need your help to continue our journey to support the development of care and connection in our community and create further job opportunities.

YOUR SUPPORT WILL GO INTO:

We urgently need £50k to purchase the building in which our currently rented premises are situated. Furthermore the old building is in desperate need of repairs from roof to basement, estimated costs £60k. Please feel free to pop in and see what we are all about!

Following are some testimonials from our customers:

Esteam is a not-for-profit enterprise that works with adults with learning disabilities in Pembrokeshire.

Groups of participants and staff have been visiting Cwtch for over ten years. From the very first visit, Mike and Keo made us all feel welcome – something that does not always happen when a group of us enter a café or a coffee shop.

Over the years, Esteam’s staff and participants have made friends with not only Mike and Keo, but with a host of other people, regulars that we have met at Cwtch Coffee, who have welcomed us and made us part of the Cwtch family, ever expanding.

We have met people from the town, travellers passing through to Ireland and artists and musicians from all over the world. Some of the customers have even become volunteers at Esteam.

Cwtch Coffee, has helped break down barriers and has enriched all of us at Esteam. It is a beacon of hope, enterprise, welcome and warmth in Pembroke Dock. Mike and Keo’s hard work and enterprise have shown what can be done to make the town a better place for everyone.

Paul Cook (team Esteam) The Warren, Castlemartin.

Help Save Cwtch Coffee – Your Little Haven in Pembroke Dock

In the heart of Pembroke Dock, nestled among the beautiful landscapes of Pembrokeshire, sits a small independent Coffee Shop that has always been about more than just coffee.

For years, Cwtch Coffee has been a place where people come together — a warm, welcoming space filled with laughter, conversation, creativity, and connection. It’s a place built with love and care, where every cup served and every smile shared is part of a much bigger story.

Today, the proprietors are reaching out with heavy, but hopeful hearts because that story is at risk of ending. Without urgent help, they are facing the heartbreaking possibility of closing their doors for good.

Cwtch is the Welsh word for an affectionate hug/a cosy, safe place and that’s exactly what they have tried to create here — a cosy, safe and comforting corner for everyone who walks through the door.

Over the years, Cwtch has become more than a coffee shop. It has hosted countless catch-ups between friends, quiet moments of reflection over a cup of tea, first dates, joyful celebrations even a death café.

Many a stranger has found warmth and light here out of the rain after missing their bus, train or ferry.

The walls are always filled with works from local artists and many a traveller has returned to perform at their intimate gigs.

It truly is a place for people from all walks of life to come together under one roof.

Mike and Keo are proud to be part of this community — to support local suppliers, offer jobs to local people, and reinvest in the town they love.

Every cake baked, every event hosted, and every coffee poured

has been done with passion and purpose.

But like so many small businesses, they have been hit hard by rising costs and difficult trading conditions. Despite their best efforts and the unwavering support of their customers, the financial challenges that they currently face, are bigger than they can overcome alone.

The reality is that without help, Cwtch Coffee may have to close its doors — this fundraiser has been launched because Cwtch Coffee still has so much more to give — but to continue, Mike and Keo urgently need to raise £50,000. This will allow them to secure the property and put the Coffee Shop on a stable footing for the future. It will ensure that Cwtch Coffee remains part of the Pembroke Dock community for many more years to come.

Jamie Barnikel

Save Cwtch Coffee shop

Come in come in, have a seat, have a coffee, have a chat, buy a book, have a look at the art on the walls. That seat, yes by the window, on the street leading down to the dock, where an Irish Sea wind jangles halyards, tangles hair and brings music, yes that seat, stay a while.

Cwtch Coffee shop and Art Gallery is a tiny venue in which Mike and Keo welcome the world . A tiny coffee shop where coffee and good food are whipped up in a whirlwind of cosy chaos, and it is more than that. For a start there is magic here.

You know it. I knew it, when I bowled in having just missed my bus, late for everything and glad, because what if I hadn't come in that day with the wind?

One year later, a reader told me my book had called to her from the Seren Books spinner in this very coffee shop into which she'd tumbled

alone and sad from the street, and found solace. There is solace here, but also much joy. This is not only a coffee shop offering refuge and cheer by day to the community and travellers alike.

One night a month, after closing, the furniture is removed or rearranged, Guy the excellent sound engineer bundles in with his cables and kit, and the coffee shop is transformed into the best little venue in Cymru.

Mike hosts music nights here, each one attended by a room full

of appreciative locals who really are the best audience, hearty and encouraging with Mike at the back loving every minute.

Cwtch Coffee is where singer-songwriter Rowan Bartram and I (aka Limbo Landers) performed our music and prose show 'Cymru Full Circle' for the first time. We were nervous as hell, the fiddle-player we'd promised having dropped out, but the gig went down so well they invited us back one year on for a repeat performance. And Mike paid us, though probably not himself. His dream, his raison d'etre is to host cultural nights for the community, not, to make a profit.

For twelve years now, one/two nights a month, ten/twelve times a year, touring mucisians from across the US , Canada, Europe, Ireland and mainland Britain have found an enthusiastic audience and stellar welcome here.

Not only is Cwtch Coffee shop and Art Gallery the only beating cultural heart of Doc Penfro, providing quality music to the community (there is no other arts venue) it provides essential and much needed services for touring artists, writers and musicians. Everyone is skint these days, but Mike has been giving it everything. It would be a travesty to let Cwtch Coffee succumb. Don't let it happen. Donate if you can. Keep the magic going.

Julie Brominicks - Author.

If Cwtch Coffee has ever been a part of your story — if you’ve shared a laugh here, found comfort in a quiet moment, discovered a new artist or heard a piece of music that took you to a new path, perhaps simply enjoyed a good cup of coffee made with care — we are asking from the bottom of our hearts for your support now.

Mike and Keo O'Dwyer

Cwtch Coffee shop and Art Gallery story

The Cwtch Coffee shop and Art Gallery, The Art of Belonging

There are some places that go beyond walls, floor and furniture, places that hold you in the moment you walk in.

For me, that place is Cwtch Coffee Shop and Art Gallery.

Mike is the heart.

Keo is the soul.

Together they have created something rare, a space where kindness and creativity meet, where laughter breaks the ice, and everyone is welcome just as they are.

Mike has a gift of quiet, gentle magic. He sees people. Not just faces or names, but who they truly are. And somehow, through warmth, humour and care he weaves us all into a beautiful tapestry of community: artists, musicians, wanderers and locals, each held together by friendship and belonging.

I first discovered the Cwtch in 2015, introduced by fellow artists Anna Waters and Barry John. After one conversation, Mike offered me my first solo exhibition. That simple act of belief changed everything. It gave me confidence, courage and the sense that my art had a home.

Since then, the Cwtch has been a steady rhythm in my life, evenings of poetry and storytelling, folk and classical music, philosophy shared over coffee and home-cooked food.

I have laughed until I cried, met friends who became a family and left every time feeling lighter, brighter, more inspired.

The Cwtch Coffee shop and Art Gallery isn't just a cafe. It's a living artwork a space shaped by the people who walk through it's doors, each adding their own colour to its canvas.

It's a home from home, a web of culture and care and a reminder that community at it's best is made of open hearts, shared stories and the simple joy of belonging.

I feel incredibly lucky to know Mike and Keo, two people whose warmth and generosity has touched so many lives besides mine. Their ongoing support, friendship and belief have not only lifted my art but reminded me what it truly means to belong.

Sally Green (artist)

Cwtch Coffee Music Venue story

Cwtch Coffee hosted it's first intimate gig in 2014 (starting our Grassroots music venue journey), supported by Guy Johnson as sound engineer, promoting The Imogen Gunner Trio. A memorable time was had by all, lifelong friendships were made, many a tradition that carries on to this day created. Guy Johnson has been our steadfast forever go to sound engineer since that day, making our gigs one of a kind, just as he is.

Since then we have hosted approximately a hundred events providing up to 2,250 people with incredible live music.

The following are but a few of the touring artists that we've had the pleasure of showcasing here at Cwtch coffee ;

Caroline Lavelle, Lisa O'Neill, Rosey Cale, Keith James, Estron, The James Clode Band, Jess Ward, Mog Fry, Chloe Matharu, Cam Penner and Jon Wood, Russel De Carle, The Corn Potato String Band, Kadia, Dewdropper, Hanami, Harpeth Rising, Connla, The Lowest Pair, Robert Lane, Gerard Cousins, Tornish, Rubber Wellies, Nathan Bell, Nine Barrow, Duski, Of The Clay, Andy Skellam, David Ian Roberts, Toby Hay, The Hut People, Rory McLeod, 3 Hat Trio, Letitia Vansant, Henry Parker, Red Deer Sleeping, Iona Lane, Julie Brominicks and Rowan Bartram, Elizabeth and Jameson, Lewis Barfoot, Eleanor Dunsden and Gregor Black, Jason Ball, Maya Kally, Filkins Drift, Annette Cleary, John Feeley, Sokol Koka, Katie Spencer, Alex Clarke, Matt Holmes, Aidan Thorne, Johnny Campbell, The Brother Brothers, Bronwyn Brent and many more!

Cwtch is a warm and beating heart in the centre of Pembroke Dock . It's not hyperbole to say that Cwtch is life-changing as well as life-enhancing.

My mother Pamela, a longtime resident of Pembroke Dock lived alone for years. Before Cwtch came to the town she could battle loneliness even though she was very vibrant and active. But then Cwtch was born and gave her a wonderful social life, and even a lifeline on various occasions. She loved it so much that in her 80s she would even help as an occasional waitress, telling stories and enjoying being useful and part of a lively group of kind people.

Cwtch is vitally important to the life of this community and contributes in no small part to the mental health of the town, providing a welcoming place to meet people, to talk and share, laugh or cry and have something great to look forward to in a day.

This is not just a cafe, it is also a destination.

Over the years as the community visiting Cwtch has grown, the opportunity to gather and listen to both local and far-flung musical talent at the many concerts and events there, has further embedded Cwtch into the fabric of town life, along with the opportunities it gives to local artists to exhibit and sell their creations, no small thing in an artistic spot like West Wales.

All of these things are exactly what we need in a modern life that is too often lonely or spent online.

I have played several concerts here and the crowd is one of the loveliest I have ever played for, the enthusiasm and warmth was second to none, even though I was heckled by my mother :-)

So much money and effort is spent by the state trying to pick up the pieces when people fall by the wayside in life: I believe Cwtch prevents this more often than we'll ever know. Every town needs a Cwtch and the incredible people who live and breathe it. Pembroke Dock is happier and healthier in every way for it being there.

Caroline Lavelle - Cellist-Singer/songwriter.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. There is no donation too small and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

sincerely, Mike and Keo