Rosie Jack, Bowhouse Manager

I know everyone says this but no one day is the same for me at Bowhouse. As the site is ever changing, I find the way I explain ‘what is Bowhouse?’ changes most weeks so I thought I could use this blog to explain what Bowhouse is and what I get up to week on week. The Bowhouse Market Weekends are really a small part of what we do at Bowhouse, yes, the markets are maybe what we are known for but we want to change that. The independent businesses that call Bowhouse home are operating throughout the week out with the market weekends as well. These businesses are food and drink producers who are passionate about well sourced, local food and drink.  

All these businesses being under the same roof means they have been able to easily collaborate and solve each others problems, for example, the café Baren use a proportion of Scotland the Bread flour for their baked goods and The Butchery at Bowhouse do a mean Futtle Beer Sausage.  

What I have been working on in the last few weeks? 

Signage is ever changing at Bowhouse with new businesses and information it is hard to get it right from the start. We are currently looking at adding more descriptive signage that will explain to the customers what the site is e.g. FOOD. DRINK SHOP, instead of MAKERS MARKET as this has led customers to think we have a market on all the time.  

After choosing our spring market traders a few months ago it’s now time to look at our April floor plan. This is where we sit down and plan out the style and layout of the market, where the workshops will be and what traders will look good where etc, it’s a fun job and makes setting up the market so much easier.    

Scotland Food and Drinks Food Tourisms Ambassador… bit of a long title I know… For the next two years I will be working with a group of ambassadors to promote our regions food and drink to our communities and tourist from near and far. The role will take me to see other food and drink enterprises across Scotland and the UK to share ideas and insights into food tourism and production. It’s quite exciting and I am really enjoying meeting likeminded people who are passionate about food and drink.  

 

Future plans 

The large event venue at Bowhouse means we can host all kinds of events from exhibitions to classical music festivals and where possible, food and drink events. These events need to fit our values at Bowhouse as well as benefit the businesses that are based on site. We could have a wedding every weekend at Bowhouse but if we were to do that we would lose site of Bowhouse’s mission of being a food, drink and community space.  

We are currently in the final stages of developing three new small retail and production spaces in the old courtyard of Bowhouse. This development came about because we could see customers arriving at Bowhouse who didn’t understand what the site was about, we could put all the signage in the world in front of these customers explaining the site but at the end of the day we needed to find a way to explaining Bowhouse visually as quickly as possible. These new units are mainly glass fronted allowing businesses to showcase their produce as well as allowing customers to see what’s going on inside, ‘transparent production’. The businesses we are choosing for these spaces will have a mix of retail and production creating a good mix of businesses on site, something for everyone. The newly renovated café Baern is at the heart of the old courtyard, Baern will showcase the produce that is grown and produced on site at Bowhouse as well as highlighting what is best and in season in Scotland. It also means we can finally get a good coffee and some lunch on site at Bowhouse….. WIN WIN!