Lisabet Outerbridge never intended to own a business; growing up she wanted to be an actress. Nevertheless, she now runs one of the most popular coffee shops in Bermuda, Rock Island Coffee.

This month the little caf? on Reid Street celebrates ten years of providing a quiet haven for caffeine aficionados particularly those in Bermuda's creative set.

"Bermuda needs more places where you can just slow down," said Ms Outerbridge. "Everybody in our world is in such a rush. I think that a coffee shop should feel like more than coming in for a quick cup of coffee and rushing out. It is a place to say hi to somebody. When you go to Italy, for example, it is quick, but it is about your community. I do think we are missing that in Bermuda, a lot."

Six years ago Ms Outerbridge and her husband John Edmunds bought Rock Island Coffee from her friends, Susannah Frith and Mark Kaufman, who started the business next to Miles Market on Pitts Bay Road.

"Susannah and Mark thought there was a need for fresh roasted, good, gourmet coffee," Ms Outerbridge said. "The Miles location was very cool and really great. I was the manager."

Unfortunately, the caf? had to move in 1996 due to expansion at the Miles Market site.

Rock Island Coffee became a magnet for the artsy crowd partly due to connections in Miss Frith and Ms Outerbridge's families.

"It wasn't pushed as a hub for artists," said Ms Outerbridge, "but Susannah particularly is very smart, loves the arts and loves people. It just happened that the people who surrounded her were like that. A lot of people in our families are musical or artistic. Her sister is the singer Heather Nova, my father is a painter and my mother works for the Masterworks Foundation."

Over the years Rock Island Coffee has provided exhibition space for such artists such as Jon Legere, Dan Dempster, James Cooper, Johanna Flath and Kendra Ezekiel to name a few. Currently, they are hosting the work of artist Sami Lill.

"The arts thing came naturally," Ms Outerbridge said. "Having art shows started back then. I just think there was a need in Bermuda for a more alternative place. Everything is quite conservative here.

"People will always think that things that are a little alternative are on the edge, that they are pushed at times, but I don't think it is."

In addition to Ms Outerbridge, Rock Island Coffee currently has five staff members.

"We hire people from all walks of life," said Ms Outerbridge. "Right now we have a very young college-y group, but sometimes that isn't what is going on. What is important about Rock Island is its acceptance of all different people."

She said although they are known for attracting the arts crowd, many of their customers are business people who want to sip coffee and read the newspaper.

"Everybody comes here together and nobody feels uncomfortable," she said. "I want it to be very open to everybody. That is important to me. I love the arts and I wanted to be an actress. In a small place and a small community everybody needs to feel comfortable. I wish I wrote. I wish I painted. I wish I did everything, but actually I think I am just a better people person than anything else. Working here, I get to experience the arts vicariously. I love meeting different people and finding out what they all do."

She said the best thing about her business is the coffee itself which is brought in raw or green from a company called Royal Coffee New York.

"The coffee comes from all over the world," she said. "It is freshly roasted every day. It is 100 percent Arabica which is the highest quality you can get from Costa Rica, Kenya, Ethiopia and Guatemala and other places."

She said in the coming year she would like to bring in as many organic and free trade coffees as she can.

"Everybody jumps on the organic, free trade band wagon, but that doesn't mean the quality is always good," she said. "You have to make sure the quality is also there. My distributors go all over the world tasting coffee and they tell me what to buy, and I listen. Right now we have about four organic free trade coffees and I am hoping that will grow."

Rock Island Coffee sells its coffee wholesale and Ms Outerbridge is hoping to build up this side of her business.

"It is difficult to compete because my prices have to be so high because I do so much of it myself and Rock Island Coffee is so small," she said. "I can not really compete at the prices that hotels need because they can get big huge bulk coffees from big companies in the United States, but a lot of smaller businesses, insurance companies, small restaurants really love to use our coffee. I really believe it is the best coffee you can get in Bermuda."

Ms Outerbridge is also a mother and brings her two-year-old son Ethan to work with her. Sitting outside on the patio with a pie wedge view of Hamilton Harbour, she kept popping up to check on Ethan.

"Look," Ethan said brightly to one group of customers. "I killed a cockroach dead."

"I am ready for him to go to nursery and I think he is ready," Ms Outerbridge said with a laugh. "He couldn't get into one until this September, but I feel very lucky being able to bring him to work. The only thing is I can't work shifts behind the counter. But I can roast coffee and do all the paperwork I need to do.

"The down side is that things that take maybe an hour take two hours. I am lucky with the people who work here. I have an incredible staff, a great manager and a great accountant. They all pitch in and help me get done what I need to get done."

Ms Outerbridge said the last six years of caf? ownership have been a real education.

"I worked in restaurants and I think I am a pretty good manager of people, but I am not a business person," she said. "So six years for me has been a huge learning curve. This is the first year that I truly feel comfortable."

She said it is fitting that she finally feels comfortable as Rock Island Coffee celebrates its tenth anniversary.

"I feel happy," she said. "I am more confident. I have a great accountant. I was doing all the books myself and I didn't know what I was doing. So that is exciting."

She said she has learned several important lessons over the years including: hire an accountant.

"One of things I have learned is 'know what you are doing'," Ms Outerbridge said. "Hire an accountant, definitely. But in a way doing the books and making a mess of them at times, I learned a lot. Now when my accountant does things for me I know what she is doing. That was important. If I were to do it again I would take a Quickbooks or computer class in accounting or a business class. But I didn't I just learned as I went along."

She said she also learned to listen to her own instincts, and to weed through all the advice she received.

"Never think you know everything about Bermuda's market," she said. "People always have great ideas for you, but you can't do them all. Listen to yourself and believe in your product. I believe in my product. A lot of things are messy around here, a lot of things need to be done, but the coffee is good and that is the most important thing to me."

Ms Outerbridge said there needs to be more places on the Island for artists and writers to meet.

"There is more need than what we can offer," she said. "Unless you are in the city, coffee shops have become very homogeneous. You don't get that coffee shop spirit unless you are in Boston, Toronto or some of the cities.

"In Europe, coffee shops are more community oriented. For me, I want to go somewhere other than Rock Island but I can't. There is nowhere else. Restaurants are great but you feel obliged to not stay very long. Here you can stay for as long as you like and only have one cup of coffee, I don't care. I just want people to come and relax. It works out that people will usually have another cup of coffee if they are writing or reading."

She doesn't want her customers to feel rushed out of the door.

"Maybe that is what is missing in Bermuda," she said. "Maybe that is what artists like. I do think there is a need for places where you can slow down. Bermuda is so busy now. People eat out all the time now."

However, she the caf?'s specialty will remain coffee. She only has vague plans to expand the food offerings to soup, focaccia and small sandwiches.

"I have had ups and downs with the food side of my business," she said. "I don't claim to understand the food market in Bermuda. I would hate to own a restaurant. I think people who can run a restaurant in Bermuda are incredible.

"I outsource. I rent my kitchen to a baker who bakes for me. She is just starting a business called Barefoot Baker. Her name is Karsten Krivenko and she is married to a Bermudian. She is starting her own bakery.

"I believe for me that is the answer. Hopefully, within the next four months we will be starting with soup and light lunches. But we will never have a full service restaurant. That is the future. I want to see how this goes."

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