Chilango breaks £2m barrier on Crowdcube: Another late surge of investors has allowed Chilango to break through the £2m barrier on crowd-funding website Crowdcube. A total of £2,021,000 has been offered by a total of 657 investors who were offered 8% interest on a so-called “burrito bond”. The money raised will allow the opening of four new sites at £500,000 each. More than 90 have invested £10,000 or more to give them a free burrito each week for the lifetime of the Bond. The campaign closes tonight at 11.59pm.

Artisan opens third site – and a coffee school: Artisan, a the fledgling independent coffee shop business based in London, has opened its third venue in Ealing – and an on-site coffee school. The 1,100 square foot location is the company’s largest venue, serving up to 40 covers as well as offering a takeaway service. It is also home to Artisan Coffee School offering training to the coffee and hospitality industry, as well as customers wishing to perfect their home brewing skills. Owners Edwin and Magda Harrison worked together with head of coffee Alessandro Bonuzzi to develop their own internal training programme, which was launched last year. Bonuzzi joined the Artisan team in 2012 and originally trained as a sommelier, winning at the Tatler Restaurant Awards in 2008 for Best Wine List. Seeing the similarities between wine and the fast developing world of coffee, he joined Artisan. The aim of the new training programme was to move away from a process driven style of training on how to make good coffee, and instead move towards helping baristas develop a more intuitive approach where they truly understand the full complexities involved when trying to deliver a high quality product. Edwin Harrison, owner of Artisan, said: “Customers nowadays are expecting high quality coffee not only from the independents but from equally from chains, hotels and restaurants. Coffee is a complex product that needs to be fully understood in order to consistently extract the best possible flavours. Our staff is our biggest investment, which in turn has become our greatest asset – we are recognised for having an energetic, enthusiastic and knowledgeable team across the company which is down to the training each staff member undergoes. We are looking to share our experiences and training to help other companies achieve a similar goal.” The Coffee School is separated from the rest of the shop by second-hand window panes to maintain the hustle and bustle of a true coffee shop experience for trainees and customers taking part in the courses.