Building Vessel Beer Shop

Having finally found a premises that could work for our business, we then got down to the job of refurbishing it. The shop needed loads of work in just a few weeks to change it from its current use to what we wanted, and in time to sell some beer before Christmas.

When we first got access to the shop, the main retail space still had dividing walls, the remnants of fitted kitchens, carpet tile flooring, flue pipes for all the cookers that had been in there, and a massive Aga which would need to be dismantled in order to move it.

Having had no previous experience of renovation work, and no equipment apart from an Ikea toolkit and a borrowed sledgehammer, we set to work stripping back the interior as much as we could. We pulled down the dividing walls, took up the old flooring, removed loads of old tiles, and painted everything ourselves (which involved much more time than we would have liked at the top of a very wobbly ladder).

After working out all the equipment we would need, we designed the bar area and the layout of the shop. It’s a fairly small space, so the challenge was to make it functional for us and for customers. We got used to seeing the bar as a masking taped shape on the floor, so it came as pleasant shock to see it start to appear in 3D once was got the carpenters in.

The giant Aga remained in the shop until about 3 weeks before we opened, so the flooring was laid around it until it was finally dismantled and we could access that part of the shop.

We knew the shape of the room with high walls and archway would enable us over time to add bits and pieces to make it look the way we wanted. The archway in particular is an ideal location for everyone to see our tap list.

We also wanted the beer fridges accessible customers, so these are in front of our bar so you can see what’s available. Behind the bar are the wines, hot and soft drinks, boxed cider and our growler machine (including a wall of growlers).

We’re keeping our seating simple for now with some Oktoberfest style benches. This way we can easily move them when we have events like meet the brewer or food and beer matching.

The exterior also needed updating. The green of Classic Cookers had been there for a long time, so we needed to ensure it was obviously a new business.  Despite being Argyle fans, the green had to go. To keep costs down, we had the old awning re-covered, and with the help of Katie’s dad, painted the exterior ourselves. We only had a short window of opportunity to get the painting done while the awning was down, which was made more challenging as it either rained or been freezing cold every day during that time.

We’re very fortunate to have worked with our graphic designer when Sam was part of the organising team for the first Leeds Beer Week. James has designed our logo, windows and awning (as well as our website and printed materials). He really took on board the look we were after, and has been very flexible in terms of delivering the designs we need in order to have everything ready for opening.

We’re so happy with the way the shop is looking now, compared to when we first got the keys. Having spent almost all our time working on it over the past few weeks, including late nights and weekends, we have had the pleasure of meeting our neighbours who often popped in to check on progress.

It’s been such a steep learning curve getting the shop ready, both in terms of teaching ourselves new skills, and dealing with all the specialists who have helped us, such as the drilling company who enabled us to put our beer lines through a 50cm solid granite wall, and the refrigeration company who built a walk in cold room in the former Aga workshop out the back.

We were working on getting the shop ready right up until the moment we opened, including a last-minute dash to B&Q on the morning of our launch. There are still a few things we want to do, so we will be making small changes over the coming months, but we are happy with what we achieved in the time we had, and hope our customers like it too.