The search for a shop

When we decided to move back from Leeds and open a beer shop in Plymouth, one of the biggest challenges was finding our premises. Although we were fairly open minded about location and the unit itself, it felt at times as though we would never find anything.

Having funded the business ourselves, our budget was very tight, which ruled out the very centre of town. We also felt that as a small, specialist business, we wouldn’t necessarily fit alongside the chain shops in town anyway.

We were looking for a place that was accessible to customers wanting to park nearby and pick up some beers to take home. We also wanted the shop to be somewhere people could sit in, relax and enjoy a few drinks and some food, so it needed to be fairly near the city centre, and close to public transport links.

A few times we thought we had found a unit that might work for us, but we were either let down by the agent or blocked by restrictions on the use of the building.

After a lengthy and extremely frustrating period spent trying to find a shop using commercial estate agents, we got lucky while walking home from a night out, in spotting that Classic Cookers on Exeter Street was available. The owners were retiring after 30 years selling and servicing Aga cookers.

It wasn’t a location we had initially considered, but we realised that it ticked all our boxes in terms of proximity to other independent businesses and to public transport, and was only a 10-minute walk from town. There is also plenty of free parking which is a bonus.

We liked the character of the building, and the north facing windows mean that the sun won’t shine in and damage our beers!

Because finding a shop took so long, it has only left us with a few weeks to do all the work needed to get it ready, as we really wanted to be open before Christmas. However, it looks like we are going to make it (fingers crossed).