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The panda is fighting off extinction, which is similar to independent stores that have fought off death and are now coming back and being appreciated because they are offering what high street chains can’t.
Beth Cooper Piarais Crowley Manoj Laka Mehr Ali
c o n t e n t s atoo birmingham bike foundary East side projects Electric Cinema leverton & Halls liquor store Ort Café Provide Polar Bear Records Rossiters Organic Butchers York’s Café
a t o o est: 1998
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a too opened in 1998. It is a high quality menswear boutique store that is located in the heart of birmingham. They stock brands ranging from norse projects to barbour. The idea behind the store is that they can mix the traditional and classic with the innovative & the contemporary.
Birmingham Bike Foundry is a workers’ c ing area for new bussiness’, With other as Stirchley Stores and Loaf- A Commun promote cycling activities and recycle d ing quality bikes for fair prices and also h know the basics of how to look after a bik day, This enables amateur cyclists to ge to improve there bikes. Its well worth
co-operative based in Stirchley, a thrivco-operatives based in the area such nity Bakery. Birmingham Bike Foundry discarded bikes. It’s known for providhelping new bike riders who want to ke, as they run ‘Tool Club’ everyThurset there hands on professional tools a visit to Birmingham Bike Foundry...
EASTSIDE PROJECTS At the time of the recession which saw many cities scaling back on their cultural offering, Birmingham was just beginning its cultural renaissance which seemed to be accelerated with the arrival of Eastside Projects in September 2008. Located south of the city centre in Digbeth and sandwiched between the Custard Factory and what was at the time Ikon Eastside and Vivid, Eastside Projects is the brainchild of Gavin Wade, a former research developer at Birmingham City University. “I was working with the Arts Council and the University to set up art projects and curated projects. And there was interest to create a new artist run space in the city”, Wade explains, “I formed a proposal for a type of artist run space that would involve artists, designers and architects and curators together to run this space […] so that formed a new notJSV TVS½X GSQTER] GEPPIH )EWXWMHI 4VSNIGXW ² %PXSKIXLIV XLIVI EVI ½ZI people spearheading Eastside Projects in addition to Wade, Celine Condorelli, James Langdon, Ruth Claxton, Simon Bloor and Tom Bloor. Eastside Projects was destined to become a member of the emerging Arts district of Digbeth, since it’s already home to the Minerva Works, Lombard Method and Grand Union to name a few (the latter two being set up by gradu-
ates who have worked with EP). It’s clear that the organisations around Digbeth work together and often collaborate to strengthen the offering of Arts in Birmingham. Speaking about the gallery’s location, Wade says, “There was already a space called Vivid, down the end of the road […], and Ikon had made an Eastside space, and with the Custard Factory there and with the activity around it we felt like it was a really good place to move into.” The gallery is more than just a local attraction; it exhibits artists from all corners of the globe, including Mexico and China. “We’re talking with other organisations around the world, all the time about partnering up on projects, and also we’re thinking about what else Eastside Projects can do in the city, how it can work with other non-art organisations in the city about developing ideas with them.” EP is assembled like a piece of design; almost everything is made or altered by artists, further anchoring its role as a “public space”. “What we were interested in […] was making a gallery a space that could be an artwork. If we were going to do a front door handle, we would ask an artist to make a front door handle. Some bits, like the bin, isn’t an artwork. We haven’t asked anyone to make a bin yet.”
An inside look at the UK’s oldest working cinema
‘The fact that we’re an independent and we are small means that we’re not corporately led. We’re led by a group of us who believe in the cinema and believe in film, so that care and courtesy is extended to our customers.’ -Sam Bishop, manager of the Electric The Electric Cinema is not your typical cinema. It’s not full of obnoxious, loud children, who spend more time texting on their smartphones than actually watching a film. ‘ We don’t have jerks’ insists Sam Bishop, the manager of The Electric for four years. ‘It’s a much nicer environment than the multiplexes’ he says. ‘You have the sofa seats, we’re licensed so you can have a drink. So generally it’s older people who come here, who may come out on a date, get a bit dressed up or have some wine.’ It hasn’t always been that way though. Since it’s inception in 1909 (a fact that solidifies it’s status as the oldest cinema in the UK) The Electric has undergone a number of different transformations. It has been known as The Tattler,The JC, The Select, and at one point was a news theatre showing cartoon reels and news reels on a continuous loop.Then, moving into the 60s and 70s, it became an adult movie theatre. After that it became an arthouse cinema. And finally, in 2004, it was turned into the cinema we see today; a boutique cinema, which means it shows an eclectic mix of different types of films; everything from blockbusters like ‘Skyfall’ to smaller independent films like ‘Sightseers’. ‘ We do still show some mainstream films as well, but we also show arthouse. That’s our niche’
Leverton & Halls Deli & Coffee shop is a family run organic deli and cafe in Bournville. They only sell the best organic and locally sourced products, fruit and vegetables. At the front, as well as vegetables, you’ll find organic, free range and free trade cheeses. And in the back there is a cosy and comfortable cafÊ.
‘We are not a high street store. That’s not what we’re trying to be’ says Phil Hazel, the owner of Liquor Store in Great Western Arcade. ‘We’re trying to offer something different. We hope there are enough likeminded people out there that want something different and don’t wanna be seen wearing the same brands as everyone else.’ Liquor Store offers only the highest quality garments. They have a mixture of heritage brands and next generation brands but all at a very premium level. ‘All about the quality & the fit’ insists Phil, who knows a thing or two about quality. He’s worked for top brands like Lee, Tommy Hilfiger, Diesel & Wrangler for many years, but in the back of his mind he always knew he wanted to open a store in Birmingham. ‘I wanted to do a store that had more of a bespoke interest in denim –especially from a heritage angle- but we could also bring in clothing and footwear to bring in alongside that; and I felt that Birmingham was lacking independent clothing stores.’ Quality of customer service is just as important to Phil as the quality of clothing is. He doesn’t want to imitate high street stores who have 100s of people coming through the doors every day and where every customer is pressured into buying something. The Liquor Store is more focused on building good customer relationships that will want to keep coming back because it offers something very different to normal high street stores. It’s not about sales; it’s about giving customers a great shopping experience. ‘You know business is business. You need to sell a lot of clothes and you need to make it work for you, but I think it’s very true that you have to keep true to who you want to be. ‘
Ort “Ort Café is sort of an accident, it just happened one day.”
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Josie and I met at uni doing our masters and she had an idea to open an art gallery and I thought it would be fun to run a business, so it just kind of evolved into Ort. About a year and a half ago, we met a couple of people that introduced us to the building and we then met Noemi, who became our business partner. She had already spoken to people in the building about running a café, so they introduced us to her and then started discussing ideas about how to put it together.” - Ridhi, co-owner of Ort.
I think the massive influx of independent businesses in Birmingham came from the fact that people have decided that if they want something they’ve got to do it themselves. They need a sense of achievement and that can only be started by people themselves. People have lost their sense of trust in larger productions because there’s been so much gone wrong. People want to know where everything comes from, whether it’s food, goods, clothing, anything like that. I think people have a better sense of identity of the things that they buy and the things that they produce. “I studied Philosophy at Undergraduate and then went on to study Global Ethics at Masters. So these kind of, ideas like globalisation, corruption globally, political systems throughout the world and the ethical implications of them. Josie was studying philosophy of mind mostly. She’s an artist and a lot of her artwork is inspired by her old job; which was working with children and people with brain deficiencies. She was a social support worker, so a lot of her artwork came from interaction with these people.” Ort will continue to grow and be self-sustaining. The aspiration is to have it fully self running. It is picking up, especially since the café got an alcohol license. Ever since, the events are busier and people have come in for the music and to have a drink. There’s jazz every Friday, Music every Saturday and maybe one or two events during the week, such as comedy or book club or another music event. As well, “Ort creates an affordable environment for people to come in and hang out. It’s a nice way to tell people, ‘look, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to enjoy our space’.” - Ridhi, co-owner of Ort.
“ANYONE AND EVERYONE” “
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hey wanted a creative, artistic community going on in the building which seemed to suit what we wanted. A lot of the things that we do here, are run by various people. [So people would come in and say] ‘Can I run a poetry workshop’ or ‘Can I put on a short film showing’. So we’ve got people that come in and work with us. It wouldn’t have ever happened without the community as we never put any money into it. We didn’t get a loan or a job to open it. We just used friends, family, and our community of people to build it. People helped by
giving paintings, decorating etc. All of the furniture is donated, recycled or from skips, this is where everything in the café came from. Everything coming together from different places, that idea of a community of people working together, is very important to what Ort is and how it became. The art usually changes every two weeks, so it’s first come first served. Anyone that’s got some artwork, no matter who or what it is, they are can come in and display as long as there’s an open slot. As long as it’s not offensive or too religious but other than that, anyone and everyone.”
PROVIDE
The Custard Factory is home to the biggest cluster of independent businesses in Birmingham, which is what makes it a haven for people who shy away from the conglomerate fashion retailers. One of the newest additions to the factory is PROVIDE, a menswear shop located on Gibb St. which is run by Matt Nation, an alum of London College of Fashion. “Every town you go to looks the same, every shop has the same range of products and we’re losing our individuality.” Matt explains, “So I wanted to start something small on my own which would offer a little oasis of difference.” And different it is, even
though PROVIDE is a small establishment, it’s gotten the community involved in its production since its conception. The chairs with wheels were manufactured in Birmingham which often seats Matt’s regular customers as a place to socialise. “The shop is designed in such a way that as you come in there’s a lot of space; so there’s space for people to hang out, there’s space JSV TISTPI XS WMX ERH - ½RH XLEX EW people get to know me they’re more and more comfortable coming in just to chat, to catch up, to say hello.” Matt also launched a newspaper within a few weeks of opening PROVIDE to showcase
artwork, literature and photography produced by members of the community, “to start with as a sort of introduction of the shop to the neighbourhood we produced a newspaper which featured local artists, poets, photographers and the aim of that, which is hopefully going to be an ongoing publication, is simply to highlight and share the work of local artists” Speaking about choosing Birmingham as a base Matt said, “Birmingham [...] is remarkably “cookie-cutter” in terms of high street retail. Since the Bullring was redeveloped, independent shops have all but disappeared. So coming from London where there’s a huge amount of interesting retail already, I wanted to go somewhere that didn’t really have a great amount of choice. There aren’t many cool little shops here but there are a lot of people so it felt right to come to where the people are and to give them something I think they want.” As a native of Cambridge, Matt has a degree in Product Design & Development for clothing (“Fashion design course with a commercial edge to it” is how he describes it) which he accomplished at the acclaimed London College Of Fashion. “As well as design I studied branding and supply chain management and retail. The most valuable part of that course was the 12 month work placement [in New York] which allowed me to get real world experience of work and to actually do something that had consequences because I found in university it was hard to motivate myself because the end outcome was always grade; and to me that never really meant that much. Whereas, when I was working for a company they would make money or lose money depending on my decisions, and products would be better or worse depending on the
work that I did.” PROVIDE is all about adventure and individuality, its own brand boasts tees, sweatshirts and beanies which are printed at the Custard Factory, it also notably sells mahogany key rings which are made in Cambodia with fair wages. There is also a trusted relationship between Provide and other independent clothing companies such as Tuk Tuk, Okee Dokee and Retreat, the latter which has its base in Northern England. Although PROVIDE is a newborn amongst other retailers in the city, its certainly living up to it’s own motto, “Choose Adventure. Embrace Failure. Defy Impossible.”
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Tell us about Polar Bear and how it started? Well, Polar Bear started 25years ago; we started as a CD shop, well more than one shop actually. It started in Leeds; we had two shops in Leeds one in Manchester, Birmingham, Huddersfield, Sheffield and Oxford. But with each successive generation of students kind of because we started in cd sales, cd sales started to get less and less every year. Well all the shops are shut now except this one. The CD market is dead, Amazon basically control the CD market. So the only way to survive is to do something they don’t do which is vinyl Amazon do vinyl but it’s normally more expensive and they don’t do second hand vinyl. Even though I’ve got a shop front most of my custom is web based, especially collectable vinyl. So we are just about hanging on by the skin of our teeth, but I do foresee that another 5 years there probably will be very few record shops. I think there would be less than 100 in the whole country. We just don’t get that much passing trade anymore. What sort of music do you stock? Anything sort of not mainstream, so we do a lot of jazz, folk, indie music, alternative, what we call rock music, also 70’s music, funk, a little bit of soul, world music so basically a lot of music. The music you do stock would you find it in HMV or high street chains? Well because we do vinyl so we would stock vinyl that the HMV’s wouldn’t stock as they have a very selective amount there.
How did you get into this business? My friend approached me in the late 80’s about starting up a CD only shop, this is when CD’s where just coming in, so I thought yeah and went for it. So for the first 15 years it was good, but at the moment cd aren’t a viable option as they have lost there value so much by companies like Amazon and Play.com and in the current economic climate like this people will shop around. Why do you think people still buy vinyl? If you talked to people there’s a few reasons why they prefer vinyl, well obviously the artwork is nicer, some people prefer the sound all though I’m not one of those people who think it sounds better, I think it sounds different like the crackle. So I think the art works important and also having the artefact you know when you pick up a record it feels so much more of a product than a cd, cd is very disposable but a record is something you keep. I have noticed with young people if they can’t get it on vinyl they would rather download, they wont buy it on cd. Most of the new releases now come out on vinyl, I just got the new Bob Dylan album on vinyl when 5 years ago that wouldn’t of happened. The only down side of it is it can cost a lot of money and me as a retailer I am dictated on what I buy it in for, I think that puts people off. But I don’t think I see a big future for this industry, to be honest but that my opinion..
Birmingham’s First Organic Butchers Rossiters Organic Butchers provide high quality, locally produced organic and free range meat in Bournville. They have been running independently for over 25 years, but have been in the premises since at least the 1920s. Rossiters is the first and only butchers in Birmingham registered as organic with the Soil Association.
Yorks Bakery source their coffee from a boutique in London called Caravan Coffee, It’s coffee roasted properly, almost roasted by hand.
Bakery Café “I am from Birmingham originally, this is where i came back to from my where my business failed in Dubai. I was born in Solihull and my family live down in Warwick, so it seemed right to start A business here but in hindsight, it’s a fantastic place to be because there’s so many opportunities here. It’s Britain’s second city.” - Simon Ford, owner of Yorks Bakery Café.
The independent retail market is very under-developed in Birmingham. Even now, new chains are opening; like Costa Coffee outside Snow Hill station, Birmingham, which opened about 6 months ago. “We wanted to start a business that did everything really well, as in coffee and teas. it’s amazing how many people get tea completely wrong”. There’s so many different kinds of tea. When it comes to green tea, pouring boiling water on to it, releases all the tannins really quickly, then all of the caffeine which is naturally very very bitter. If you use 70 degrees centigrade water which is what Yorks Café staff do. The tannins and the caffeine retain in the leaf and you get the
natural sweet flavours coming out in to the water.Yorks is the probably one of the only places in Birmingham that actually serves tea that way. Most coffee shops that you go in to, just throw a tea bag into a cup and blast it with boiling water from their espresso machine. By adding boiling water on to a tea leaf, it destroys any of the flavour. That’s what they serve and they charge their customers for it..Yorks’ hot chocolate is made from real belgian chocolate, it’s made by melting belgian chocolate, and adding steamed milk. “No powdered chocolate enters the premises at all, it’s all done properly.” It’s also all delivered by a dedicated supplier, which imports the chocolate.“
All our sources are local. We try and keep it very local and support other local independent businesses as well to avoid supporting the big chains. We went through a real challenge in the first couple of months when we opened, where people were demanding extra hot coffee because their expectation was what they know from the likes of Starbucks. i.e.
it’s quite weak, it has lots of milk and it’s very very hot. With our milk, it’s slightly cooler than Starbucks, some people don’t like it but by steaming the milk cooler, you actually release some of the natural sweetness. “When I was a student, Starbucks was a cool place to go but now i’m meeting so many students who actually are
Yorks Bakery were trying to completely re-define what a coffee shop/café is in Birmingham. All the cafe’s goods are baked by an ex-pastry chef for Marco Pierre White. The staff team are looking at reviewing everything over 2013 for the new sandwich range. Also, the breakfast menu is becoming a bit more cre-
ative. A cooked breakfast for some people might be sausage, beans, eggs and bacon. However, at Yorks there are some interesting cooked breakfasts, e.g. spicy cannellini beans with bacon stew and poached eggs, served with sourdough toast. It’s like posh beans on toast. “We’re just trying to create a bit more of
d i r e c t o r y A t o o 9 Ethel St B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B2 4BG T: 0121 643 3989 w w w . a t o o . c o . u k Birmingham Bike Foundry 1539 Pershore Road S t i r c h l e y West Midlands B30 2JH T: 0121 459 7276 w w w . b i r m i n g h a m b i k e f o u n d r y. o r g East Side Projects 86 Heath Mill Lane B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B9 4AR T: 0121 771 1778 www.eastsideprojects.org Electric Cinema 47-49 Station Street B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B5 4DY T: 0121 643 7879 w w w . t h e e l e c t r i c . c o . u k Leverton & 218 Mary Vale B i r m i n g h West Midlands B30 T: 0121 451
Halls Road a m 1PJ 1246
Liquor Store Great Western Arcade B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B2 5HU T: 0121 236 5830 www.liquor storeclothing.com
Ort Café 500-506 Moseley Road Balsall Heath B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B12 9AH T: 07429153744 w w w . o r t c a f e . c o . u k P r o v i d e The Custard Factory Gibb Street B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B9 4AA T: 0121 224 8224 w w w . p r o v i d e s h o p . c o m Polar 10 B i West T:
Bear York r m i n Midlands 01214
g h B14 415
Records Road a m 7RZ 202
Rossiters Organic Butchers 247 Mary Vale Road B i r m i n g h a m B30 1PN West Midlands B30 1PN T: 0121 458 1598 w w w. o r g a n i c b u t c h e r s b i r m i n g h a m . c o. u k York’s Café 1-3 Newhall Street B i r m i n g h a m West Midlands B3 3NH T : www.yor ksbaker ycafe.co.uk
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