So, did you watch Mary Queen of Shops tonight on BBC2 featuring Hoylake’s green grocers 3 Sisters (also discussed here)?
Sorry if you’ve been having trouble accessing Hoylake Junction …the site crashed for around 20 minutes or so, presumably due to the volume of visitors.
Anyways, feel free to have your say in the comments below – it’d be great to hear from you!
This was by far the best of Marys programmes (no plug!)and to see all three sisters come through feeling humbled and doubtful in the face of a tough challenge was uplifting to us both! Well done for your commitment and spirit all three of you!
You are all an inspiration.
Good luck for the future
Tim and Sue Ellis
Loved the programme as usual……fantastic what the girls have done by taking Mary’s advice. Well done ladies…keep it up…when I’m up there in Hoylake, I’l defo give you a shout…..
Mary Queen of Shops was spot on with her prescription.
From an agonisingly slow start it seems the sisters have pulled it out of the bag! How great to have access to fresh Hoylake-grown produce! We have nothing like this in Edinburgh. Let’s hope they can keep it up.
Now, how about the fish shop stocking local fish, cockles and shrimps?
Or New Hall Farm providing fresh Hoylake milk?
And why is there no deli in Hoylake? It seems that the sisters have proved that quality will attract customers. The Meatball deli was a huge success in the 1970s and grew to three shop units but sadly declined following a change of ownership.
I think they already sell local shrimps when they are available to them.
The Meatball, yes, what a memory from my childhood. I can remember the smell of all the spices, cheeses, meats and topped off with the aroma of coffee beans floating above it.
The shop used to dip down towards the back of the building to another level and my mum used to buy all her extravagant cooking ingredients there and the coffee beans she used to grind in her Moulinex blender!
I was in the Thai restaurant tonight that sits in situ of part of the store trying to remember the layout of the interior.
Oh for a time machine or even a photo!
I think it looks fabulous and a real benefit to Hoylake – would be interesting to see if business is still booming? They could move into that empty shop next door and set up a coffee shop / deli!
A great programme. We must try to support quality independent companies and try to preserve the diversity of our high street, lest the large supermarket groups reduce everything to a boring conformity with little to chose between them. I thought the blonde sister was the best!!
Does anyone if they will deiver as far as L13? I for one would love to give them a go!
Plus do they have a website?
Brilliant programme although I hope it isn’t too controversial to mention the resistance and agressive attitude shown by these ladies throughout the programme. If I’m really honest, in terms of the business in its own right I would definitley consider buying all my produce from there. I believe it is really important for us to pull together as a community. Sadly, the abruptness and attitude of the owners would make me have second thoughts.
I wonder about the name of Fosters and them being there for 115 years.
When I was a child living in Elm Terrace, behind Woolworths, I used to go shopping for my Mum and I remember walking up Elm Grove and going through the centre of Mckenzies Electrical shop to Woolworths, then to Coopers Grocers, then MILLS greengrocer and Fish Shop,run by a Mr Jackie Mills and his ‘wife, then Watsons Bakery and finally Miss Ormeshers Sweet Shop.
Does anyone else agree??
Now you mention it, McKenzies had a triangular display window at the actual corner of Elm Grove and Market Street, and you could walk behind it to get to the front door, or as you said, just use it to cut off the corner. Probably a waste of Space, but unique, and at least you were out of the rain for a few seconds. We bought our first TV from there for the Coronation, the man who installed it went on to run the Off Licence by the Parish Hall.
Ref the shop next to Wollworths, wasn’t it the Hauge cafe? Again, it was a long thin shop which went right back alongside Woolies. Not sure whether or not they had an upstairs.
I would love to support my local Hoylake independent retailers, but sometimes it is made very difficult for me….half day closing in 2010!!!!!The independents in West Kirby do not feel the need to have a Wednesday afternoon off or indeed close for lunch, so I find myself driving to West Kirby to be sure the local shops are open. I have never arrived at Sainsburys to find them unexpectedly closed. Come on independents of Hoylake…help me to help you.
Thought it was a really good programme, hard to watch at times! With a great end result though. just hope the girls are keeping up the hard work.
Perhaps Mary could come back and sort the rest of the shops out…..
fabulous show tonight, what a difference to the whole show when everyone got on board, i loved the pictures that hung on the wall and the quality of the vegetables and the choice was amazing(afterwards) the start of the show and the dreary shop and contents was a laugh, who would go in there and shop with the produce that they had on display?
well done and goos luck for the future girls x
funny you should say that. I used to always find them closed last year on my way home from work (which is when i wanted to shop there). I wondered if they closed at 3 or something as this would have been around 4 or 4.30 pm. They seem to have been open longer since the refurb. It would be a pain if they are closing early again!!
Great programme for entertainment value but lets keep in mind that it is just that…. it would have been rather boring t.v if the sisters congenial nature had been properly represented. I think we could all get defensive if provoked enough and we need to remember that lots goes on behind the scenes in these ‘fly on the wall’ documentaries and only a tiny proportion of what is filmed ever goes into the final edits. I moved to Hoylake just before the makeover and so can’t really comment on the quality before hand, but I now do pretty much all of my fruit and veg shopping there as I find that it lasts longer than the supermarket and is cheaper. So for personal reasons I wish the 3 sisters continued success!
I loved this programme and especially as it was about local retailers. I tried recently to buy local and the produce is definitely better, unfortunately the convenience factor dragged me back to Tesco. I just wish they delivered to Wallasey ( where I live) I would definitely be signing up to this service.
However I will try and get up to Hoylake to give the shop a go. I wish the girls every success, and am so glad that sense prevailed, with all of them, and look what rewards it has brought.
The Hague Cafe was next door to Irwins the grocers which was past Horswills the Butchers, and where the Flats are now, and also the HOT STUFF Fireplace shop.
It was definitely Coopers.
I hope they set up their own homepage and become more empowered to deliver the veg boxes nationwide. I’d love to get that box here in London. Excellent programme and all the best to the three sisters!
Loved the programme as always.
I am now keen to use the shop to see what it is like.
I agree these programmes are heavily edited but,never quite believe what you see.( Ha! witness Marys rather strange driving route to Hoylake)
However it does show that people often have to let go of a particular mindset to make a success of business.Good luck to them.
Great to see images of Hoylake and the beach..just a little disappointed that the programme never mentioned “the Wirral” always referring to Hoylake as in the heart of Merseyside.Coming originally from the south I had not then heard of the Wirral and seeing this prog many viewers would assume Hoylake was a part of, or a suburb of Liverpool,Such programmes never seem to acknowledge the identity of Wirral which is rather mixed and quite special.
WOW! I live in Liverpool and wish we had such a grocer in the centre.
I was skeptical at first but these sisters were brave to listen to Mary.
Amazing! I am planning my visit soon!
I’ve just left a post elsewhere on this website about local fishing, but to echo Peter’s comments here, what about promoting local fishing in Hoylake? Revive our heritage, attract tourists, make Hoylake even more special. We now have a great local grocers, what about a seafood shack in Hoylake? People travel from all over to Parkgate for local shrimps and a proper ice cream. What about a seafood shack, selling locally caught seafood (a seafood box anyone?), perhaps on the promenade. The Council have space there for a small pitch, so why not? Lets beat the supermarkets here in Hoylake! Oh, and a great ice cream shop…
Why not have a seafood shack in the old RNLI building currently for sale along with restaurant?? A bit like the Oyster shacks in Whitstable
The fishermen in Port Isaac, Cornwall have their retail outlet inside the RNLI station and up here there is a well known crab and lobster shack at Crail in Fife; people come from miles around.
Completely up for that… come on someone with the money and the vision, Hoylake is crying out for this! It’s ripe for a revival.
Marco Pierre White isn’t coming here on a whim… the stats have supported his decision. Not a guess. A fact.
Bibendum in London, a huge success… Whitley Bay for more ‘down to earth’ inspiration… Rick Stein’s place in Padstow in Cornwall; the many very very cool seafood places in remote villages in northern France that make a very handsome living from off beaten track tourists.. . It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination. The market is here.
We do have a fishmonger in Hoylake… if you are reading this, step up to the challenge… we will support you!
Well said. You know what, Hoylake has so much potential and yet nobody seems to tap into it. Why?
The Mary Queen of Shops aired in Canada two weeks ago, Mary is very big on local products, whitch leads to what do you replace them with when out of sason? They changed a out of date store to a speacily shop,like she did with a general store to a specialty store with lots of fresh, local products. I hope both makeovers are succsseful in the long run.
The thing I hoped they would have shown more of Hoylake, still an interestihg show.
Makes me want to get overhauled here with my business, at first I agreed that I thought the public would like to choose their vege’s for the box delivery, but boy talk about gobsmacked when that guy said it all at the door ‘it’s like a surprise, I like it!’ WOW makes me want to open a Green Grocers LOL
Would be awesome to really boost my photography site though 😀
I see the programme was aired in Canada recently – was it CTV or CBC ? hope we can get to see it in British Columbia
It aired on BBC Canada last November,BBC Canada and BBC World News where controlled by Global, whitch is now Shaw.Now that Shaw carrie the BBC programs we now get their crappy commercials even on BBC World News, we did not have commercialls before.
Since you are in BC contact Shaw to see if it will be rebroadcast.They have changed the format and now call it different inspectors.BBC in England changed the program format.