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New Bike Shop Coming To Greenwich

March 12, 2009 By Rob Powell

A new bike shop will be opening up in Creek Road in the first week of April. Cycles UK, an independent chain with 16 branches around the South East, will be opening up for business on the 4th April and will be stocking a wide selection of brands including Specialized, Trek, Marin, Wilier, Cube and Pashley alongside a great range of kids & BMX bikes, clothing and accessories.

They are also planning a pilot programme to offer courtesy bikes to customers whilst their own bikes are being serviced or repaired. Cycles UK is actively encouraging feedback from cyclists about what they would like from the shop, so if you have any comments, check out their new blog which shows progress with the store as it nears completion.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Creek Road, Cycling, Shopping

Andrew Gilligan: Small Shops Are Cheaper

February 11, 2009 By Andrew Gilligan

"BABY: nothing yet," declared the blackboard outside Dring's butchers in Royal Hill this afternoon. For me, it said it all about how local shops, local shopkeepers - and their families - give something to a community that supermarkets never can.
 
One of the most popular things my newspaper, the Standard, has ever done (apart from helping to stiff Ken Livingstone) is its campaign to save small shops - and Greenwich is amazingly lucky to have somehow held on to many of the sorts of shops that have been swept away elsewhere in London. They're part of the lifeblood of the area. Their stock is more interesting, they do less damage to the environment and the money we spend in them goes back into our area, not into corporate shareholders' pockets and tax shelters in the Cayman Islands.
 
Yet the one killer argument for small shops we never thought to make - the one we simply assumed wasn't true - is in fact true. In Greenwich at least, small shops are often cheaper.
 
We've all been conditioned to believe that supermarkets offer value for money. That was, of course, their proposition when they started up: pile it high, sell it cheap. But now that they control three-quarters of the grocery market, things are a little different.
 
Yesterday and today, on your behalf, I spent a couple of hours comparing the prices for groceries at my nearest supermarket - Somerfield, in Greenwich High Road - with those in my nearest collection of small shops - those on Royal Hill. I admit to being surprised by the results.
 
The small shops, as you might expect, offered produce better or equal to the supermarket's. But they were also remarkably competitive on price. In around half the cases, they were cheaper; most of the rest of the time, they were within a few pence.
 
On fish and meat, the quality and choice at Drings and the Fishmonger (round the corner in Circus Street) was far higher than at Somerfield, but the prices mostly lower. Free range lamb chops at Drings were £5.99 per pound. Non free-range lamb chops in a sad plastic box at Somerfield were £15.40 a kilo (£6.98 per pound.) Free-range pork chops were £2.99 per pound at Drings. At Somerfield: £4.89 per kilo (£2.21 per pound), for non free-range in a plastic box.
 
Somerfield barely seems to have any fish at all, but the one comparator I did find - mackerel, again in a little plastic box, was £9.84 a kilo at Somerfield against £6.99 a kilo for fresh mackerel at the Fishmonger.
 
Supermarkets have scored in the meat stakes with pre-prepared ready meals, but Drings caters for this market too. It has a rosemary and garlic chicken breast for £2.15 and a thyme and garlic chicken thigh for 75p - both substantially cheaper than their closest equivalents in Greenwich's ready-meal king, M&S.
 
On fruit and vegetables, the Creaky Shed in Royal Hill charged 20p for an orange (Somerfield 32p), 25p for a lemon (36p), and 39p for a pound of cooking onions (Somerfield 45p). The small shop was more expensive on grapefruit (50p to 46p), apples (30p to 9p), and potatoes (88p/lb, Somerfield 45p).
 
On eggs and packaged groceries, the Royal Hill mini-market again beat Somerfield on most prices, and came very close on others. The list (compared yesterday):

  Mini Market Somerfield
Cheapest free range eggs x 6 £1.20 £1.59
Coke 2 litres £1.71 £1.86
Persil non-bio powder std box £2.89 £3.23
Head and Shoulders Classic Clean £3.99 for 500ml £2.26 for 200ml
Kellogg's Cornflakes 500g £1.89 £1.89
Jaffa cake bars x 5 £1.49 £1.64
Cheapest white sliced bread 95p 76p
Pint of Milk 50p 46p
Fairy Liquid 500ml £1.49 £1.16

Now it is true that Somerfield, the only general supermarket in central Greenwich, may to some degree be exploiting its position. Most prices at my closest large store, Tesco in Lewisham, beat the local shops - though even then, not by very much at all, and there are still some goods that are cheaper in Royal Hill. When you add in the cost of petrol, parking and time, the difference amounts to very little indeed.
 
So the question arises: why do we blindly flock to supermarkets, with all their queues, when it would be quicker and often cheaper to use small shops? Partly that false perception that they are better value. Partly habit. Partly, perhaps, their general shininess. We are greater suckers than we'd like to admit for bright lights and polished metal surfaces. And it is true, too, that though the supermarkets fall down on the quality of their fresh foods, like fruit, meat and fish, they offer a much wider choice of enticingly-packaged snacks and junk.
 
All of these are simply terrible reasons for choosing supermarkets. But what my little survey suggests is that Greenwich customers aren't, yet, as price-sensitive as they should be. People just chuck things into their trolleys or baskets without noticing what they cost. As the economy slides, however, more people will be looking at the ticket on the shelf.
 
The small shops could, I think, do more to woo us. They could take credit cards; not all do at present. With the honourable exception of the Royal Hill mini-market (daily till 10), they could open later - the butcher's started putting away its stock today soon after 4.30. Some of them could do with a better range; the selection of goods in the minimarket is quite downmarket for this area, though to be fair the supermarkets have sweetheart deals to  monopolise some of the best brands.
 
Above all, though, they need to find some way of making us aware of the fact that they actually offer extremely good value for money.

Filed Under: Andrew Gilligan Tagged With: Shopping

Daily Photo 07/01/09: Closed Shops

January 7, 2009 By Rob Powell

Closed Shops

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Shopping

Rough Shopping

December 9, 2008 By Andrew Gilligan

SOME PEOPLE in my road resent the endless tide of leaflets that washes through our letterboxes, and keep special bins by the door to put them straight in. Me, I chuck the pizza menus away – but I do enjoy laughing at the various local PR publications that slither on to our mat.

My top favourite is of course Greenwich Time, the council’s ridiculous propaganda newspaper - still doggedly insisting that putting the Olympic equestrian events in the Park will "transform" the sporting prospects of the borough’s kids, with a horse in every council flat.

But I’ve also got a real fondness for our two glossy local free magazines, Meridian and The Guide, with their articles by estate agents (“contrary to the doomsayers, the market remains surprisingly buoyant”) and glowing reviews of bad restaurants (“my companion’s garlic bread was delicious.”)

This month, inevitably, they’re both full of Christmas shopping baloney – Anthea Turner’s Yuletide organisational tips, that sort of thing - although I’m afraid Meridian has slipped up a bit. “With the twinkle of Christmas lights, the golden glow from the shops and the bustle of excited shoppers, Blackheath Village looks magical and very Christmassy at the moment,” writes Nanette Fielding on page 16 of the latest issue.

Alas, the magazine containing this charming description of Blackheath Village came through my door on December 3rd – in other words, three days before the Blackheath Christmas lights were switched on.

I, too, started my Christmas shopping even more prematurely than Nanette started writing her PR puff, though not yet at any of the chi-chi outlets advertised in Meridian or The Guide. No, I’ve been to - ahem - TK Maxx at the Peninsular Retail Park, Charlton.

Like some ultra-respectable Cabinet Minister secretly drawn to rough sex, I always feel, as a certified member of the West Greenwich bourgeoisie and campaigner for small shops, slightly guilty about my outbreaks of rough shopping. For the Charlton Peninsular Retail Park could not be further from the platonic middle-class shopping ideal.

As you probably know, it’s basically a strip-mall, a dozen big-box outlets strewn around a chaotic car park without any pretence of design, civic amenity or indeed anything other than the naked maximisation of profit. You won’t see Christmas lights, twinkling or otherwise, here – Christmas lights cost money.

My ex-colleague, the retail design guru Mary Portas, has brilliantly expressed her total contempt for TK Maxx, with its higgledy-piggledy racks of T-shirts and complete lack of style, display or taste. She is, of course, right – but I confess that that’s what I like about it. I’ve always enjoyed rummaging through street markets, and TK Maxx is a bit like a street market with a roof on.

Just like a street market, there is, these days, a fascinating mix of people. Most of the customers once seemed to be Poles and Lithuanians, plus a sprinkling of eccentrics like myself, but now they have been joined by a certain quota of credit-crunch refugees.

Just like a street market, most of the shopping niceties are missing. There are very few mirrors. There are supposed to be changing rooms, but whenever I go they always seem to be shut. So if you are trying on a shirt you do sometimes find yourself doing it in the middle of the shop (this only works for men, obviously.)

While doing this, rule number one at TK Maxx is to keep track of where you have put the clothes you came in wearing. The place is so chaotic that last time I was in there, someone picked my North Face jacket off the rack where I’d dumped it and took it to the till to pay.

Rule number two is that when you are looking through what actually is for sale, look everywhere. As in normal shops, they are supposed to sort the stuff by size and category – but the size labels always seem totally random and there are so many people going through the clothes that lots of things get put back in the wrong places.

The only strategy is to treat the job like, say, the Parachute Regiment clearing an enemy trench – methodically hose down each aisle, one at a time, until you are sure there are no cut-price Adidas T-shirts left alive.

Also rather like a combat zone, you have to block out the ceaseless aural shellfire from TK Maxx staff making announcements to each other over the in-store Tannoy (the Lewisham store seems much worse than Charlton, for some reason). Then, of course, there’s the 20-minute wait at the till.

If you can overcome these obstacles, however, the actual merchandise can be quite good. Much of the stuff is quite well-known brands - though often, admittedly, failed experiments by those brands which have bumped up against the limits of even British taste (I saw a pair of Puma trainers my size: the only problem was that they were in bright lime-green camouflage stripes, presumably so the wearer could take up a position in a tub of guacamole and not be noticed.)

If you are patient enough, you will usually come out with some small and quite acceptable, if not quite the very latest-model, designer trophy for yourself or a loved one: a Calvin Klein shirt or a Ted Baker jacket, perhaps, and for about half of what it might cost new. But I’ll be back in Blackheath Village next weekend: rough shopping is fun, but like rough sex, it’s a quick date, not a love affair.

Filed Under: Andrew Gilligan Tagged With: Greenwich Shopping Park, Shopping

The Greenwich Boutique Launches

November 16, 2008 By Rob Powell

Greenwich Boutique Opening

Last Wednesday's Late Night Shopping Event also saw the launch of The Greenwich Boutique in Greenwich Church Street.

This high end ladies' fashion store is the show case of fashion designer Schola Titus and her label Coco Seamstress. Schola has been backed by the London Youth Support Trust (LYST),  which is a charity dedicated to helping young entrepreneurs.

Coco Seamstress specialises in "beautiful, well made garments" that take their inspiration from fashion icons of the '50s.  Also in the shop you will find clothes and jewellery from other LYST supported fashion brands such as Fingerprints, Chelline International Fashions and Design 237.

The Greenwich Boutique is open now at 44 Greenwich Church Street.


From Left to Right: Schola Titus, Tabitha Fyffe from Fingerprints, Michelle Nomwa from Chelline Intl Fashions

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Greenwich Church Street, Shopping

Duel Of The Delis

November 6, 2008 By Andrew Gilligan

AFTER my last week's moan about Nelson Road, I thought I'd say something nice about Greenwich shops for a change. To adapt the title of that bestselling book - is it just me, or are some things not quite as s--t as they were?

Books, we've even got a shop selling them now. New ones. We've got an M&S. We've got a fishmonger, tucked away down Circus Street. We've got a decent independent wine merchant, in Trafalgar Road.

And over the last couple of years, Greenwich, a place where the pinnacle of cosmopolitan eating was once the red Peperami, seems to have got itself several rather nice-looking bakery/ delis.

Well, all right, they're not all strictly delis, they're deli-ish - but look, I'm calling them that so we can headline this piece "Duel Of The Delis." Alliteration, right? We hacks love alliteration.

They might not all be delis, but there certainly could be a bit of a duel because over the last three years or so a comparatively small area, West Greenwich, has gone from no deli-type places at all to four. They keep opening more of the things. Earlier this week, I took the carrot cake challenge.

I started with the oldest of the new places, what was once the "George" cafe/deli in Nelson Road, now more cafe than deli and rebranded as the Cafe du Musee. It's joined to two other "Musee" shops, including the original bar, and it's part of Frank Dowling's Inc empire, of which I've not always been the topmost fan.

As I was standing there, making some notes about the furnishings, Frank himself, who I've never actually met before, suddenly came through the door specially to shake my hand (this sort of thing doesn't happen as often as I'd like, by the way.) Had he spotted me on CCTV? Is he having me followed? "Be nice, we're trying," he said, before leaving just as quickly as he'd come.

You know what, Frank, I will be nice. Your shop was just a smidgeon clinical, with its black slate floor and its chandeliers - though it does have a nice grandfather clock - but actually, your carrot cake was pretty damn good, moist, generously-sized, worth the £3.25, I thought. So no green inc from me about you this time.

Inside Rhodes in Greenwich
Rhodes, Greenwich

Then it was round the corner to Rhodes, the rather stylish new bakers (est 2008) opposite the entrance to the naval college (don't think it's any relation to the celebrity chef Gary, which is probably just as well.) The window is stacked with shelves of cakes but the price tickets are strategically turned away from the street. If you saw them from the outside (£2.20 for a baguette) you might never cross the threshhold.

And that would be a mistake, because this is an attractive place, with friendly service, better than the Musee, some of it with a calm North American accent. They're attentive, they approach you - although once I'd ordered and they'd put it at the till, they wandered off, leaving me a bit stuck when I wanted something else.

They didn't have any carrot cake when I went in, so I got a sort of fruit Danish, which was good and light and had quite a decent collection of fruit in the middle Unfortunately the other thing I chose, the ham and cheese croissant, was duff: tasteless cheese, rubbery at the edges.

On the admirable Greenwich Phantom blog, Rhodes is accused of charging 70p for a scrape of butter - "which was actually margarine" - to put on an 80p scone. Didn't check it myself, but if true, remarkably bad form, guys. Prices and consistency are the issues here.

Next stop the Nevada Street Deli, in what used to be the Spread Eagle second-hand bookshop. I miss those floors of old paperbacks, stretching away like Gormenghast, but if it had to go, this is a good replacement. "Poilane delivered every Saturday," says a little blackboard in the window. I had a tasty sausage roll and anchovies on bread - they do light meals too - and I was well served, though gently ticked off for eating my Rhodes fruit tart thingy on the premises.

This is easily the nicest place to sit in of the four, though alas there are only two full-sized inside tables, plus a further three seats perched in the window. The reason I'd never been in before was I'd never seen a table free before.

Finally, the Buenos Aires, tucked away down non-touristy Royal Hill with, I think, the best food of the bunch. It's Argentinian, you might guess, but not perhaps quite as Argentinian as you might hope. The Argie pastries are fab but the savouries are a bit more Med than Latin America. Lots of my neighbours love the squashy leather sofas, but I have bad memories of trying not to spill hazardous hot drinks while sinking into them.

In all of these places you can, if I'm honest, get that slight, rather SE10, sense that they're good without being absolutely outstanding. The long-established Italian deli in East Greenwich - which was closing, but may now not be - remains the local standard to beat for quality and variety. But with the arrival, now, of four newish places doing similar things, the magic of competition may raise everyone's game. In the tough times ahead, they all deserve to survive. Let's hope they all do.

Filed Under: Andrew Gilligan Tagged With: College Approach, Food, Nelson Road, Nevada Street, Shopping

Late Night Shopping Event

November 4, 2008 By Rob Powell

Late Night Shopping, Greenwich Town Centre, Wedneday 12th November until 10pm

Greenwich Traders are kicking off the countdown to Christmas with a special late night shopping event in Greenwich on Wednesday. Many shops will be open until 10, and there be many great discounts and bargains for shoppers on the night. Entertainment will be on hand in the form of local guitarist, Steve Bolton. Steve will be performing in the market, and also look out for a very special stall from Charlton Athletic Football Club.

Pop along next Wednesday evening and some of the discounts you will find include:
• 20% discount on all leather handbags at Hide All (Greenwich Market)
• 20% discount on all Juicy Couture at Pets and the City (Creek Road)
• Up to 20% discount on selected items at Warwick Leadlay Gallery (Nelson Arcade)
• 20% on all purchases and refreshments at The Red Gecko (Greenwich Market)
• 15% discount at Lucia Angelis (Turnpin Lane)
• 10% discount and free gift wrapping at jeweller Johnny Rocket (College Approach)
• 10% discount and free gift wrapping at jeweller at Autumn and May (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount and free gift wrapping at So Organic (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount and champagne at ladies’ fashion boutique Apostrophe (Nelson Road)
• 10% discount and champagne at ladies’ fashion boutique Belle (College Approach)
• 10% discount at Pickwick Papers (Nelson Road)
• 10% discount at Bullfrogs (Greenwich Church Street) – plus spend £125 and qualify for Bullfrogs’ VIP loyalty card
• Free bib with all purchases at Beauty and the Bib (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Lush Designs (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Quetzal (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Dao plus free packet of tea with every teapot bought (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Red Door (Turnpin Lane) between 8pm and 10pm
• 10% discount at Stewart John (Turnpin Lane)
• 10% discount at Silk Route (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Art of Nature (Greenwich Market)
• 10% discount at Nauticalia for GreenwichCard holders (Nelson Road)
• 10 % discount at Bizili (Greenwich Market)
• Free beer - and your chance to meet Bernard - at Meet Bernard (Nelson Road)
• Free St Tropez tan, mini manicures and goody bags at The Clipper (Nelson Road)
• Five cakes for the price of four and 10% discount at Daisy Cakes Bake Shop (Turnpin Lane)
• Top spender on the evening at Mr Humbug wins a jar of sweets (Greenwich Market)
• Learn how to play carrom at Compendia (Greenwich Market)

Filed Under: What's On Tagged With: Shopping

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