THE OFFICIAL SHOP ANNOUNCEMENT...

So, here it is…

The actual real life news we've been waiting for, the update we know lots and lots of you have been after too. Before we start we'd like to thank every single one of you, from the bottom of our hearts for all your kindness, support and positivity during this extremely unsettling time.

Important time say all our artists were given this update first. Neighbourhood Store is not just Gary and I, it is over 130 artists too. We are a team.

The last 12 months have been soooo hard not knowing what was going to happen to our beloved Neighbourhood Store. It's been the toughest year of our whole time trading it even kicked the arse outta Covid fears. It's messed with our mental health and has not been a happy time. Not being able to plan can kill a small business but despite this weirdly we have had more ideas than EVER. (Don't worry the ideas are documented and we hope to take them forward into a new space in 2024).

Discussions finally were able to start just a few weeks ago. It was at this point we really realised how stressed this whole experience had made us. So after much back n' forth, last week while we were away, on Neighbourhood Stores 5th birthday, we finally made OUR bravest business decision to date.  We decided to take control and give notice on the space we are currently house in. I know right?!

After everything we finally understood, as clearly as we could that we needed to take our power back, be in some kind of control of our lives and give us, our artists and Neighbourhood Store the respect it really deserves.  Neighbourhood Store is not about this building, it's about what's inside.

That lightbulb moment gave us the strength to roll the dice in hope to take NS to the next stage.  A bigger and better space to be able to create the real community hub we always wanted it to be…

Store, Venue, Canteen

Therefore, we can now officially announce that our last day of trading under this roof will be 23rd December 2023.  The day before Christmas Eve.  Again another big decision to spend that day with our kids for the first time in 5 years.  After Christmas we we will then pack up the colourful dream shop to whatever happens next...

So you know, we have found a space we love, we've kind of always had our eyes on it.. Then 3 days before we went away it came on the market. Of course, we dropped everything and pulled together the best lease proposal to make our offer. Honestly, we made a NS brochure. We wanted the new landlords to fully understand everything about our business and our community needs and wants and how we could achieve it all. A massive thanks to those that did testimonials for us at the last hour, they were pretty amazing to read. Certainly some tears flowed!

And of course a massive thanks to our blended dream family also for excusing our absence. We are still unsure on the outcome of our offer as yet. While on holiday we literally didn't stop refreshing our inbox from Thursday till right this minute. We've got everything crossed and really feel we have done EVERYTHING we can to secure it. The concern is though our confidence and determination is second to none, our pockets just may not be deep enough to tackle the hefty deposit.  But we were told our proposal was very well received. So again we are in a waiting game. Hoping to hear either way this week.

But hey, if that space doesn't come good then we have to believe it's not the right space.  And we will sit tight and wait some more, until the right space becomes available. Its got to be right so we can do ALL THE THINGS. Yes, it may mean we will disappear as a real life store for a bit, but we will have the online shop, socials and will look at potential POP UP shop options in Shoreham by Sea to keep us ticking over.

There will be more updates as we work our way through this but until then you honestly know as much as we do right this second.

We'd like to say that we wish nothing but kindness and love to our original lovely landlord and family whom have been such a great support to us since day one. They believed and took a chance on us to give it a go and without them NS may never have been born. Also we'd like to thank Steve Wedge of Wedge Estates for making the world of commercial estates and management a better place. We wish you all the happiness going forward and only hope our next space has great people like you to drive and encourage independent businesses in our town.

Soooooo, there we go. That's it for now. We've kinda dusted ourselves off best we can and are ready to get on with it. The last 11ish weeks left on your high street.

There's 20+ new AMAZING artists joining in the next couple of weeks and all our existing team will be re-stocking new designs.

We really need you more than ever now to keep us going. PLEASE come support our mega artist team and us for the final run under the original NS roof.

Again and again thank you for being by our sides throughout this year.

We want to fight to stay because of you.

Big love

Em & Gary aka Saturday Boy x