In 2018, we swapped London for the Kent coast in search of a slower, quieter life by the sea.
That didn’t quite go to plan.
We’d been running a bakery business from home for several years and had reached the point where it felt like now or never. We wanted a proper bakery, somewhere we could make the kind of bread and pastries we loved, and London just didn’t feel like the right place to do it.
So we packed up our lives, moved to Whitstable and went for it.
We got the keys to our first bakery just before Christmas 2018, with the slightly ambitious plan of opening by Easter. What followed was several months of building, painting, fixing, buying equipment, moving equipment, questioning our life choices and generally doing whatever it took to get the place ready — all with two young kids in tow.
Then, the day before we opened the doors, we found out we were expecting our third.
Excellent timing.
The little bakery out the back
Grain & Hearth started life in a small garage building tucked away at the back of a courtyard.
And when we say small, we mean small.
We somehow squeezed an entire working bakery, café and shop into it. Ovens, mixers, benches, bread, pastries, coffee, retail shelves, customers and us — all crammed under one roof.
We were hidden from the High Street, through a set of gates and around the back, but somehow people found us.
Then they told their friends.
Before long, there were queues through the courtyard, bread disappearing from the shelves and croissants selling faster than we could make them.
It became pretty obvious that our little garage wasn’t going to contain us for much longer.
Luckily, the shop at the front of the building became available at exactly the right time.
We jumped at it.
Suddenly we had a proper High Street shopfront, more seating, a bigger menu and enough room to grow into the kind of bakery and café we’d always imagined.
We’d gone from being hidden around the back to sitting proudly on the High Street — although we’ll always have a soft spot for those slightly chaotic early days in the garage.
Next stop, Faversham
A few years later, Carmen’s aunt Marianne spotted a little shop in Faversham and told us we needed to have a look.
As is often the case, she was right.
It was a brilliant little space in the heart of a beautiful market town and immediately felt like somewhere Grain & Hearth could belong.
So, between bakery shifts, Adam and Carmen’s uncle Barney rolled up their sleeves and renovated the place.
Our second Grain & Hearth was born.
Today it’s a bustling little outpost of its own, filled every day with the same sourdough, pastries and baked goods we make in Whitstable.
And, importantly, the people of Faversham no longer have to cross county lines in pursuit of a decent croissant.
So much for the quiet life
A lot has happened since we first opened those doors in 2019.
We’ve grown from one tiny bakery hidden behind some gates to two shops, a much bigger team and a business that has become a fairly enormous part of our lives.
But the reason we started hasn’t really changed.
We wanted to make really good things, properly.
Bread made slowly. Pastries made with care. Great ingredients. Good coffee. Good food. And shops that feel like they belong to the towns they’re in.
We’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, learnt an enormous amount and probably spent more time talking about butter than any two people reasonably should.
It’s been exhausting, exciting, occasionally terrifying and incredibly rewarding.
We came to the coast looking for a slower life.
Instead, we built Grain & Hearth.
So much for taking it easy.
