Run by Hannah Grainger and her husband Gavin, it is a place for select menus, music and cocktails.
Started on the back of a passion for city venues, this husband and wife team wanted to create something in Chesterfield that they themselves would go to.
Bottle and Thyme has been in the town for six and a half years, and is made of hard work, devotion, and a creative ‘yes we can’.
Let’s ask Hannah and Gavin some random, and not so random, questions.
1. As a married couple, what’s it like running a business together?
Hannah: “We definitely clash. We’re both opinionated. We both have different ideas so that will always happen. But then, we meet in the middle.” Gavin: “A good middle ground… I’ll often go too rogue for something, and Hannah will be like ‘That’s just too rogue’. I’ll be ‘Let’s put a watermelon steak on the evening menu’ and Hannah will be ‘I don’t think that’s going to work’. And I’m like ‘I really think it’ll work, let’s put a watermelon steak on the evening menu’. Needless to say, it didn’t sell that well.” Hannah: “I think sometimes we both have a more firm ‘That won’t work’ or ‘This is what we need to do’, when generally, it’s more in the middle somewhere. We love working together. It’s great.” Photo: Gavin and Hannah Grainger with bartender Hugh Hudson
2. What’s your favourite dish?
Hannah: “I love my smashed avocado with poached eggs. I could eat that every day and be happy.” Gavin: “I’m leaning more to the evening food. A dish that isn’t on the current menu right now but will be on the next menu… steak with a horse radish creme fraiche, pickled radishes, and caramelised shallots. A really tasty dish.” Photo: Gavin and Hannah at Bottle and Thyme, Chesterfield
3. What’s your favourite thing with doing what you do?
Hannah: “The part I enjoy the most… speaking to all the customers. You can miss out a bit on that if you’ve got so much on running the business. You miss why you set it up. That’s the love of it. That buzz. There’s nothing better than being on a busy Saturday and it’s like one in, one out, and you’re speaking to people, and the team are bouncing off each other.” Gavin: “And you can tell everyone’s really enjoying their food, everyone’s in a really good mood.” Hannah: “And you get to know people. We get such lovely customers. You see them go through, like, when they’re pregnant, and then they bring their baby in, and you meet their next child. All these lovely things. Or they’re going on holiday next week, and when they come back they’re showing you their holiday pictures. We just have a great group of people that come in.” Gavin: “Community.”Hannah: “Yeah.” Photo: Bottle and Thyme window
4. What was the inspiration to open Bottle and Thyme?
Hannah: “So, Gav… you’ve always been in the trade, whereas I haven’t.” Gavin: “Cocktail trade, bars, restaurants as well. Chatsworth Road… I managed a restaurant up there for a while. So I’ve always been in the trade and always really interested in setting up my own eventually. Hannah had similar aspirations of wanting to set up like a brunch style cafe.” Hannah: “I was a teacher, so completely different… but that had always been my dream, if you like, but I can’t say that I would have made the leap on my own. But obviously we met, and then I think us going into places like Leeds… we like to go to cities. And we’d be in places that just inspired us, I guess. And we wanted to bring that to Chesterfield. And I think it just grew from there.” Photo: Gavin and Hannah, owners of Bottle and Thyme