Welcome to our blog series, telling the stories behind the businesses in Clevedon.
Martin and Laura – A Better Weigh and Mustard
Tell us about your business. What services do you provide?
Martin: A Better Weigh is a zero waste shop. We sell both food and non food products which are loose, so people are able to help themselves to just the quantities that they want to.
Laura: Mustard is a café and a deli as well. We sell lots of things like cheeses, breads, meats and dried goods. We also do outside catering.
How did you start your business? What’s the story?
Martin: I ran an IT company for just under 30 years. Laura’s background is in retail, she worked for Waitrose. I think we both wanted a change in our jobs. They were both very busy with long hours, I was working away a lot. So we started to look around at other opportunities and we decided we would look into a shop. This was about 8 years ago and zero waste shops had just started to come onto the market. We had a look at a few and really liked the concept and so we thought we would pursue that.
It took about 12 months from us initially having that conversation to actually opening up the shop. Laura left her job first and we opened A Better Weigh in 2019. And then the day we opened the shop the company that I was working in was going to be sold off, which took a year, and then I joined Laura in 2020. At that time A Better Weigh was just on one floor and then we expanded it over two floors.
Laura had always wanted a deli/café, and the shop over the road became available. We took over the tenancy of that and opened up our café. It was initially called A Better Weigh deli, and a few years later we rebranded it as Mustard.
Laura: I’ve always loved cooking, so to be able to have a job that you love is very fortunate. I like looking for new ideas, and changing it up. Picking new recipes for different seasons. Customers are always coming in asking what we’ve got on today.
What is the best thing about running a business in Clevedon?
Martin: What’s so nice about being in Clevedon is that there is such a strong community feel. I didn’t realise just how many friendships I would gain from having a shop. People ask me questions about my family, and I ask questions about theirs. You see the same people week in week out. It’s lovely. You feel you are making a difference.
We feel really privileged that we are so well supported by people who live in Clevedon. It’s so nice that they are willing to come back time and time again.
A Better Weigh and Mustard are on Old Street. A Better Weigh is open 9.30am – 4.30pm Tuesdays – Fridays and 9am – 4pm on Saturdays. Mustard is open 9am – 4pm Wednesdays – Fridays, and 9am – 3.30pm on Saturdays. To find out more call 01275 235122