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| Iain and Karen sell their home in Nantwich, Cheshire to set up shop in Edinburgh.
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| Premises are found and the lease is bought for 30A Victoria Street. The renovation takes three weeks with Iain's Dad doing most of the work! During this time, Iain stays in a camper van with Karen continuing to work 'down south' until finding steady employment.
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| On Wednesday morning, the doors open with knees knocking and tasting knives at the ready. A grand total of £70.00 is taken.
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| The Cheesemongers employ their first staff in the lead up to the festival giving us two staff members and Karen as the Saturday girl!
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| Our first Christmas gives us a shock - we keep running out of cheese! Three full time staff and ourselves struggle to keep the queues down which are stretching out of the door and down Victoria Street.
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| A successful two years sees us with two full time staff, allowing Iain to start looking for premises in Glasgow. As Victoria Street seemed to become increasingly smaller, we found it difficult to mature the amount of cheese we needed to serve our increasingly large customer base, some of who are travelling all from the west to buy our cheese. We also install a curing room for maturing blue and soft cheeses.
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| We bought our first delivery van.
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| We secure the lease on 492 Great Western Road, Glasgow and set about creating a brand new shop with purpose built cellars for cheese maturation.
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| We open our doors to the Glasgow public who welcome us the with open arms!
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| We rent a room above the busy Victoria Street shop - our first office. Allison, the Victoria Street manager, moved in to run it.
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| Our van gets stolen from the Glasgow shop, leaving us to hire another to get through the Christmas rush.
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| The manager of the Glasgow shop is appointed as the first full time Wholesale Manager as we make a concerted move into the wholesale market.
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| We open a provision merchants at 205 Bruntsfield Place and move the office to the premises. July also sees the birth of Rory - the first heir to the Mellis empire and a vital part of the business.
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| We sell our old trusty Citroen, which, in the early days, has long trips down to Lincolnshire and Cheshire, returning, springs stretching from the weight of hundreds of cheese truckles!
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| We buy a coffee roaster to begin roasting our own beans in the Bruntsfield shop. Unfortunately it takes two months to arrive and we don't begin roasting unit January 1998.
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| Karen is officially made a full time partner in the business.
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