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The Chalkboard Menu Is a Promise Written This Morning
A chain menu was locked in months ago, maybe longer. Someone in a head office, somewhere, signed it off for the season and moved on. The chalkboard menu on the wall of your local…
Six Pubs Close Every Week in the UK. The Ones Still Open Are Run by Landlords With Second Jobs.
Your landlord has a second job now. Not because they want one. Because it is the only way to keep the lights on and the taps running when you walk in on a Saturday.
More Than 1,000 Pharmacies Have Shut in Ten Years. Here Is What That Actually Costs You.
More than 1,000 chemist shops have closed in the last ten years. That number should bother you, and not just because you liked the one on your corner.
Why 'Worked at a Small Business' Is the Best Line on Any CV
Four words tell me more than four pages of corporate history. Worked at a small business. That is the line I look for, and most recruiters scroll straight past it.
The Shop That Has Been There 35 Years and Nobody Knows How
Every town has one. You walk past and it is always dead. No queue, no passing trade, no Instagram presence. And yet, somehow, the owner is still there. Still at the bench. Still…
A Booked-Out Independent Is Not a Problem
Someone in my comments said they tried to support the high street but the tradesperson was booked out for six weeks. They meant it as a frustration. I want to flip that completely.
In Half of Britain, the High Street Is a Van That Turns Up
In a lot of Britain the high street is not a street at all. It is a van that turns up.
Why a man who sold three companies spends his days talking about the British high street
I tried to retire. Properly tried. Different countries, different cities, the full tour. And what I kept finding, wherever I went, was that the thing I missed most was British…
95 Bank Branches Are Closing This Spring and the Corner Shop Is Being Left to Pick Up the Slack
Ninety-five bank branches are closing in the UK between now and spring. That is not a rumour. That is the report.
150 British Heart Foundation Shops Have Closed. If They Cannot Make the High Street Work, What Chance Does Your Local Independent Have?
The charity shops are leaving. That is the sentence I did not expect to be writing, but here we are.
Yes, Chains Pay People. Here Is Where the Money Stops.
Someone in my comments said chains pay people too. They do. That is not the argument.
Why Peter Watson Films Independents Every Day: The Reason Behind Keep Them Open
I sold three companies and did nothing for two years.
You Are Already Spending the Money: Why Affording It Was Never the Point
Someone in my comments told me they love the idea of supporting the high street, but they simply cannot afford it. I want to be very clear about where I stand, because this one…
Your barber has been watching your whole life. That is not a haircut.
A hundred thousand people watched my barbershop video in a single day. I have been doing this long enough to know what the comments will look like before I read them. But this…
Every British High Street Is Starting to Look the Same
Someone wrote to keepthemopen.com recently and I have not been able to stop thinking about it. The message was simple: go back twenty years, and every time you arrived in a new…
The Barbershop Is Not Just a Barbershop
A barber shop to men is more than just a haircut. That is not my line. That is what the barbers themselves said after a video I made about independent barbershops hit a hundred…
Backing independents does not cost more money. It costs the same money, spent differently.
Someone left a comment on one of my videos, pulled from a submission on keepthemopen.com, and it said: it's easy for you to say, you've got money to throw at the butcher and the…
A Wedding Is Twelve Independent Businesses All Working Together
Someone sent this to me on keepthemopen.com and I have not stopped thinking about it since.
Councils Are Spending Millions to Save the High Street While Charging You £4 an Hour to Park on It
Three stops on the high street costs you £12 before you've touched a door handle. That is the maths councils have built, apparently without noticing.
Some Independent Shops Will Close No Matter How Much You Support Them
There is a version of this problem nobody talks about, and a story sent into keepthemopen.com put it plainly enough that I had to stop and write it up.
Why Independent Hotels Give Britain a Better Tourism Industry Than the Chains
Nobody who books a holiday expecting to discover a city actually wants to check into the same lobby they could find in any airport on earth. They want someone who has been…
Tell your independent owner why you keep coming back
The person behind the counter at your local does not know if they are going to make it this month.
Why an Independent Hotel Gives You Britain, and a Chain Gives You Nowhere
Nobody wants a chain hotel. They think they do, because the booking is easy and the loyalty points feel like something, but what they actually want is a place with a person in it.
Why I Still Take the Black Cab: The Case Against Taxi Apps
Walk out of a London terminus and your phone already knows what you want. An app, a pin, a car in four minutes. I don't want it.
Britain Backed a Teenage Creator Overnight. The High Street Needs the Same Energy.
A British teenager got a million followers in three days. That is the starting point, and it matters more than it sounds.