Cocktail debates and a rabbit in the headlights: the story behind Chesterfield’s Bottle and Thyme

Hannah Grainger laughs, her husband Gavin smirks, says “Yeah” as Hannah adds “So we got chatting through that didn’t we?”

We’re sat round a table at a busy Wednesday lunchtime at Bottle and Thyme in Chesterfield, enjoying coffee, sparkling water, and a backstory to how these two got together. Hannah, 33, and Gavin, 32, have been running this successful town eatery for six and a half years.

Their story begins several years ago at Maison Mes Amis on Chatsworth Road where Gavin worked, Hannah out with friends.

“It kinda went from there. Eventually he plucked up the courage to ask me to go for a coffee, and that was that.”

So, all of this began with a cocktail debate? “Yeah” they both say in unison, Hannah adding “Which is classic for us. We’re always in a debate.”

Bottle and Thyme hums with vibe. Music, chatter, the sound of cutlery against plate, all held in a characterful space of re-used timber and surprisingly, a huge metal bank vault door.

Hannah nods. “It’s a quirky building. It used to be a bank. So it’s got the big old vault door where all our stock is. When we took the building on, Gav renovated it himself.”

“Back to the original features,” Gavin adds. “The original high ceilings. We did all the pallet wood walls, made all the tables. Did all the plastering.”

“The inspiration was to bring something like this to where we live,” Hannah explains. “Because we were always going to cities. Sheffield, Leeds… and being in places that we were like ‘We could do this, this, this…’”

At this point of the story, Hannah explains she was still a teacher when they took the first step to creating Bottle and Thyme.

“I wasn’t supposed to leave teaching straight away. Obviously, it was risky setting something up. We said we’d do it and then see how it went, and maybe somewhere along the way I would join in.”

“Then once Gav started renovating, I used to come in after school and be like sanding or whatever, and I just thought ‘I don’t want to miss out on this’, because if I’m not in it from the beginning…”

“We’d have been passing ships,” Gavin adds.

As the conversation turns to the opening night of Bottle and Thyme, they both laugh, Gavin looking across to Hannah with a smile: “You were like a rabbit in the headlights.”

Hannah agrees. “Everyone that knew us who came to our launch night said that I was walking around like ‘What’s going on?’ I hadn’t even been a waitress in a Saturday job or anything… all I knew was being a teacher. For a few days I just thought ‘Oh dear’.”

Hannah pauses, then with a soft strength says “But then I got into it, and I absolutely loved it.”

It is clear that their gamble paid off, and a large part of this win is down to hard work and self-belief. Hannah talks of trusting instinct, and the bravery involved in saying it out loud.

“Obviously, I had to tell all my family I was leaving my steady teaching job that I’d worked really hard to get. My grandma and everybody was like ‘You can’t do that’ so I had to be pretty sure to stop everybody else worrying.”

“It was one thing one of us making that leap, but both of us, and having no steady income… but I think that’s the thing, if you overthink something, we wouldn’t have done it.”

Gavin and Hannah talk of lockdown, of how a curious idea became such a success it kept the business going, all at a time where the couple had just had their first child: Otis.

Hannah smiles: “And you launched the take-away… and we did these take-away cocktails. You bought these big insulated boxes, filled them with crushed ice, then made the cocktails up as they would be in the bar…”

“Then pushed them into the crushed ice,” Gavin adds, the cocktail debate clearly continuing. “So they were like frozen on the outside, and we delivered them…”

“Gav turned into a delivery driver,” Hannah laughs. “It was a bonkers time because I was at home with Otis… and Gav was here all the time… and maybe chuck me a burger on the doorstep every now and then.”

“It was a crazy time. And people were able to be in their gardens with family and friends, and you were taking a round of cocktails, and then they were ringing up and ordering another round.”

Otis, now three years old, is a regular here. When asked if he’s waiting tables yet, both Hannah and Gavin laugh and shake their heads.

“He loves cleaning,” Gavin says. “His new thing is, when he comes in, is asking for a cloth,” Hannah adds, “and he wipes all the tables and chairs.”

Bottle and Thyme has come a long way in six and a half years. Proudest moments?

“I think, when we won best restaurant, that was a really good thing,” says Hannah. “Coming out of Covid and opening up after that, that felt good. But I would say my proudest moments are a busy Saturday morning, and you look around and think ‘We did that’.”

“Same for myself,” adds Gavin. “And in the evenings, when you’ve got that buzzing cocktail environment, you’ve got music on, people are dancing… and the food has come a real long way since we opened. The most proudest moments are in the passing day.”

Bottle and Thyme, a Chesterfield indie cocktail of endeavour, creativity, and ‘yes we can’.