If you don't know us, we are Steven and Gareth; the founders of Hive Stores in Altrincham, a multi award winning micro business.                

We've been a couple since 2005, for the first decade of our relationship Gareth worked in high end fashion retail as a sales assistant and visual merchandiser; and Steven worked shifts in front line roles for two of the four emergency services.

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We were like ships passing in the night, so to spend more time together, we decided to set up our own business doing something we both enjoyed, which started out as buying and selling vintage items.

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We began our business at Altrincham Market in 2015 trading 4 days a week and opened "The Hive" in 2018. We tried juggling the market stall and The Hive, but working separately defeated the purpose of us giving up our guaranteed salaries, annual leave, sick pay and pensions in order to spend more time together.

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So in mid 2020 we left Altrincham Market, rebranded The Hive into a General Store, and used our savings to buy everything we needed to set up the Beverage Bar, which we opened in April 2021. 

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Since starting out in 2015 our business has been funded completely through organic growth. We both have a strong work ethic and it has always been really important to us that we were self-funded by our own hard work rather than owing money to banks or suppliers.

But in 2023 we had to launch a Crowdfund campaign to help fund the expansion of The Hive, we're both the kind of people that prefer to give presents than receive presents, so launching a Crowdfund campaign was a difficult decision! But the support we received was emotionally overwhelming, so we will always be grateful to those that supported us!

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On 11th April 2024 our business evolved again! We opened the doors to a new cafe bar & deli, leading to the evolution of Hive Stores Altrincham.

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