Since taking over the Video Box store on the corner of Surrey Street and Upper Gloucester Road three years ago, my husband Hakan and I have had a vision of transforming this great little place into the ultimate neighbourhood grocery store. We wanted to offer good quality fresh produce, locally-sourced and seasonal, and by listening to our customers, aim towards building an ideal community service.

Whilst running it as a DVD rental store, we have got to know the local community really well, and having received positive feedback on our ideas for the store, this has encouraged us to reach for our goal. Excitingly, eight weeks ago, we finally re-opened as ‘Grocer and Grain’ and are delighted with the reaction, support and encouragement of our new and existing customers.

We offer a range of locally-sourced produce including: organic milk, cheese, eggs, bacon, ham and sausages from local farms. Also bread, cakes, coffee, ice cream and herbs from suppliers in Brighton, as well as fresh seasonal fruit and veg, plants and bread, dairy products, drinks and wholefoods and still offer DVD rentals as well. Following customers’ suggestions, we are going to be extending our range of local products to include fruit, veg, honey, meat and more. After many customer requests, we are also selling the vintage French wine crates on which we display our fruit and veg.

What has been so exciting is discovering great local suppliers with a passion for their produce which, in turn, we hope to share with our customers. We have lots of exciting ideas to help evolve and develop the store over time, it’s still early days but the journey is a joy.

The location of this store has always been a great stop-off for locals to have a chat and talk film with Hakan; now with food being the subject too, and a new interest in the changes, there’s always a great conversation flowing over the counter.

We want to interest our customers with new ideas for cooking in store with recipes to take away, highlighting new products, trying new suppliers and asking for customer feedback. We have exciting projects to involve the community which we’ll keep under wraps for now. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Lizzie Toklu
Grocer and Grain, 1 Surrey Street, Brighton, Tel: 01273 823455