New Beginnings

Although the new year is supposed to be the time for renewal, I think for most of us, Autumn still feels like the beginning of the new year and the time for fresh starts. It seems even more so this year, after months of uncertainty. It seems a good time to talk to you about where we see GR going over the next few months.

When I shut the doors to the kitchen in mid-March I assumed we’d be back some time in June, just in time for the summer events season, whether that was fairs and street parties, or weddings and corporate summer parties. It’s always a busy time for us. But as the weeks drew on and customers and organisers began to cancel plans, it became pretty clear that the future wasn’t quite what I imagined.

I’ve spent the months since March thinking about the business and the future. Life isn’t the same anymore and who knows when London will return to its busy self or when the events industry will be able to hold events for more than 30 – we built the business on the back of them but can’t rely on them anymore. This means we have to adapt to the new.

We’d literally just started a delivery offering in London, and it became very clear very quickly that while we have a lot of loyal customers in the capital, many of them are outside, whether that’s in the suburbs or much further afield – after all many of our customers travel in and out of Kings Cross up to the North. So it was obvious that offering delivery in London was just too limited.

Therefore over the past few weeks we’ve been rebuilding the website so that we can now offer our customers the chance to buy our macarons and have them delivered the next day to most part of the country (sorry Highlands of Scotland, but they’ll still be fine after 2!). We’ll be sticking with our usual offer of 8 flavours per month, and you’ll now be able to see what’s cooking on our menu page. We’ve identified some very original packaging materials which are 100% recyclable and are looking forward to sending our products to you.

At the same time we wouldn’t abandon our local customers and are working on getting ourselves into some more markets once again, returning to our roots. You’ll still find us at our usual haunts as they open up again, and we’re returning to Primrose Hill and hope to do the same at Victoria Park. We can now also be found in High Street Kensington every other week. We’ll be offering a wider selection of products, more of which to follow here – it’s been fun to work on some new items so that you can have more choice.

Finally, in a move we’d planned for earlier in the year but was put back, we’re going to open up the front of our kitchen – which is actually a shop front – to the public on Friday afternoons for you to pop by and grab something sweet. I’m not sure the exact day we’ll start but we’ll post here and on social media when we do. You can also give us a bell and order something to pick up on the other days of the week but we’ll need a bit more notice for that.

Over the years we’ve gotten to know many of our customers both market and wholesale and you’ve all been so supportive. Therefore I’m going to use this blog to communicate with you on a slightly more personal level so you get to know us a bit better. We’ll be posting about things we like, new recipes, discoveries, previous projects and new products. I hope you’ll check in and see what we’re talking about.

Keep safe and well and see you soon