Liverpool Baker Braidy opens new ‘punk’ cake and coffee shop ‘Five’

Braidy Maloney is opening a new ‘punk’ cake and coffee shop in Garston so she can pass on her expert skills to her youngest son.

Popular Liverpool baker Braidy, 44, who enjoyed sweet success as one half of Catherine Braidy in Aigburth – alongside former partner Cath Williams – is set to launch a new venue in St Mary’s Road on August 26.

The shop will be called Five, after the confectioner discovered she was the fifth generation of her family to follow in floury footsteps.

And she says: “Hopefully my 18-year-son Kaiden will eventually become the next one and open his own shop, Six!”

It’s a little bit different to your average coffee shop. 

“It’s got a punk rock attitude to it,” says Braidy.  “By that I mean everything about it from the decor to the ethos of the business. It’s about the freedom to embrace who you are, to not conform to social ideologies of what’s acceptable in terms of physical appearance or design. (It’s not punk in the typical terms of anti-establishment nor is it about anarchy).”

There’s a wall of women who inspired Braidy from Dolly Parton, Debbie Harry, and Vivienne Westwood, to She-Ra and ‘my mum’: “All strong women who went against the grain of what society thought women should be like. 

“They took up space, voiced their opinions, and stood firm in what they believed. For me, the true definition of punk rock.”

Braidy says she is excited about the new venture, although she admits it’s followed a tough time.

“I decided it was time for a break after I went into peri-menopause and started suffering from anxiety for the first time in my life,” she says.

“It made me re-assess everything. I wasn’t happy and so I told Cath I was leaving and lined up a job – funnily enough doing bar work in the Doghouse pub in Penny Lane, where my eldest son, Danny, 26, would have been my boss!

“I was never not going to bake but I had no thoughts of opening my own shop – until I saw this one that was empty and wandered over to have a look.”

She goes on: “Kaiden had just quit his job in the kitchen of the Doghouse, and when I saw this shop I thought I could open it up and train Kaiden as a baker. The idea is that we can continue the family line of bakers and I can teach Kaiden, who is very creative, a skill, and love and nurture him at the same time.”

Like Catherine Braidy in Aigburth Road, the new shop will sell cake and coffee to eat in and take away, and you’ll be able to order traybakes and occasion cakes as well (Braidy has a reputation for cheeky cupcakes that celebrate ANY occasion from weddings and hen and stag dos to having a vasectomy or new boobs!).

“It’s really exciting,” says Braidy. “We have done everything ourselves apart from the plumbing and plastering, and the electrics. My husband Paul is a web designer but it seems he can build walls as well as websites…

“It’s going to be so nice.  I live in Garston so it’s good to be giving back to the community, and all the the people in the area who’ve seen it are pleased because it’s been closed for 28 years.

“It’s not your normal coffee shop. Everyone who’s seen the pictures have said it’s so me.  It is completely out there but I thought, I’m going to work here, I’m going to be here a lot of the time, so I’ve decorated it like I have my home.

“It’s a safe space.  I have always been intimidated to go into a shop where there’s no customer service and people don’t say ‘hello’ and ask you how you’re doing. People can come in here and be themselves, they don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.

“It’s been quite a journey for me. I was never comfortable in my own skin until I was heavily tattooed and had different colour hair. I get abuse walking down the street sometimes but I feel like I should be like this – and anyone who comes into Five can be just how they should be.  

“I don’t want anyone to come in and feel like I used to.”

Braidy adds: “It’s exciting to be opening a new cake and coffee shop and working with my son although,” she laughs, “I’ll probably get sick of him after a week and sack him.

“I want Five to be a real community place, somewhere everyone can come and meet, and be themselves; and where my son begins a new phase in his life.

“I’m really looking forward to it.” 

For more info on the new cake shop Five click HERE.