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“Very, very toxic”: Is Tamper losing its cool?

Tribune Sun
Image credit: Tamper Instagram.

Dear readers — Tamper Coffee has a reputation as one of the best spots for coffee and food in Sheffield. Set up in 2011, it rates very favourably with customers, and is famed in the city for its laid-back Antipodean vibe and top notch brunch options.

But last week, we were contacted by a former member of staff, who wanted to discuss their experiences. Others quickly followed. At the time of publishing we have spoken to five staff members who have all left this year, and exchanged messages with a sixth. Some were happy to go on the record, others chose to remain anonymous.

The picture they paint is not flattering: inappropriate, sexualised comments from management and a highly stressful environment with continual threats of redundancy. All have chosen to leave, though some felt they were “forced out”.

Editor’s note: The article, including a statement from Tamper in response to our reporting, is after the briefing. But to read most of the piece, you’ll need to be a Tribune member.

Why? This kind of investigative reporting is time-consuming and legally risky. We need the support of committed Sheffielders to keep doing it.


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⛓️ O’Mara, where art thou? The Tribune has been trying to work out which prison the former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O’Mara has been serving time in. It was a long shot, but we wondered if he might be up for an interview.

This week, we heard back from the “Find a Prisoner” service, with some highly surprising news: “His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service records hold no trace of this person being held in prison custody at present within England & Wales.” At first we assumed there must be a mistake, so sent over several news stories detailing his conviction. The response was the same. So has O’Mara been released already?

O’Mara was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court in February 2023 to serve a four-year sentence after being found guilty of fraud to fund his cocaine habit. If O’Mara has been released already, he would have served less than half of his sentence.

Know anything? Get in touch

🎾 10 council-owned leisure centres and sports venues in Sheffield are to be run by a private sector company from the New Year. Everyone Active (EA), a subsidiary of Sports and Leisure Management Ltd (SLM), will begin operating venues including Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, the English Institute of Sport Sheffield (EISS) and Ice Sheffield from January 2. Three more, The Graves, Thorncliffe and Wisewood Leisure Centres, will follow in 2026. The venues have been operated by the non-profit Sheffield City Trust for decades, but they agreed to hand the venues back to the council after receiving a £7 million bailout in 2022. However, EA will still receive a council subsidy of £14.5 million over 15 years (2025-2040), almost £1 million a year.

🍻 Sheffield city centre is to get a huge new Euro-inspired beer hall. Named Kapital, the venue is the brainchild of the team behind Abbeydale Road’s Two Thirds Beer Co. and will be based in the Elshaw House building next to Pounds Park. The bar’s owners say they aim to bring “the best of Europe’s beer halls to Sheffield, spotlighting the rich traditions and vibrant cultures of the iconic beer cities of Brussels, Pilsen, Prague & Munich”. As well as fresh beer imported from Europe, they say it will also offer continental cuisine and live entertainment.

🪩Were you a Crasher Kid? Or perhaps one of the Gatecrasher staff responsible for entertaining them or gently nudging them out the door as the sun rose? If so, we’d love to hear from you for an in-depth piece we’re working on about this iconic clubbing brand. Email Victoria at victoria@sheffieldtribune.co.uk.


“Very, very toxic”: Is Tamper losing its cool?

By Daniel Timms

When I pop into Tamper, it’s a Monday afternoon, a day when you might expect to find a café pretty quiet. Quite the opposite. “It’s like a Saturday, it’s so busy,” a slightly frazzled member of staff tells me.

Tamper is based in Sellers Wheel, formerly a silversmiths, nestled among the eclectic mix of little mesters workshops and Sheffield Hallam buildings that jostle for space between the train station and Arundel Gate. It arrived in Sheffield in 2011, the project of Jonathan and Natalie Perry, and since then has been a big hit. Many believe it serves the city’s best coffee and, among Sheffield’s high-end cafés, it has a certain cachet from getting here before the others piled in.

And outsiders have taken notice. The Good Food Guide writes that “as you'd expect from an Antipodean operation, the coffee is great and so are the fresh juices, pastries and cakes”. And the Guardian recently wrote that “Kiwi-owned Tamper” is in competition for the title of “Sheffield’s best coffee shop”.

As both reviews allude to, you can’t really visit Tamper without picking up the strong New Zealander identity. Since the nation reinvented itself as a coffee capital — via laying claim to the invention of the flat white — Kiwi has become café cool.

Image credit: Tamper Instagram.

The atmosphere when The Tribune visits is imbued with that Antipodean laid back vibe. The playlist is heavy on mellow folk-pop, with tracks by Bear’s Den and The Paper Kites. A beautiful dried Christmas wreath with a hessian bow adorns an exposed brick wall. The lighting hits the sweet spot of being dim, but not dingy. It’s not hard to see why it’s popular.

But in the last week, The Tribune has spoken to five former members of staff, who told us that working for Tamper was anything but laid back. All have left over the last six months. We also exchanged messages with a current member of staff who didn’t want to be interviewed but admitted that they are one of several people who “have had a negative experience and wish to speak out on the matter” but are too scared of the potential repercussions. They’d like to stay in hospitality, but only if they can work for a “less problematic business”.

The picture painted by the staff The Tribune spoke to has been remarkably consistent: of highly stressful working conditions, including continual threats of redundancy; inappropriate sexualised comments from management that made staff feel uncomfortable; and a paranoid atmosphere. That’s led to a rate of staff turnover that has been extremely high, even by the standards of the hospitality industry. By one estimate, seven members of staff have left in just the last two weeks.

In response to our reporting, a spokesperson for Tamper said:

"We are an independent local business which sets high standards and cares for people. It is so upsetting for us and for our current team to have to respond to claims which are false or which we have examined and found to be baseless or emphatically denied. The allegations published by the Sheffield Tribune have been made by a very small group of people after they chose to leave us — nobody was made redundant. We have built up and sustained a successful enterprise in a wonderful city centre setting which has loyal and supportive customers, a hard-working team, and great reviews. We are confident that our business is run with dedication and care, and managed properly. Best employment practice and an appropriate workplace culture matter enormously to us."

“I didn't want to put any more money in their pockets”

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