A year ago we opened the doors and hoped someone would walk in. We didn't know who and we didn't know how many. We just believed that if we created something with enough care and the right flavour, the people who needed this would find it.

And they did.

From London to New York, Sydney to Singapore, the house has grown to be the space we always wanted it to become, filled up with exactly the kind of people we'd imagined sitting at the counter when we were still sketching this on the back of a napkin at 2am.

We like to think we can tell a story or two but the people we've had the pleasure of welcoming in have left us with ideas and references you'd find nowhere else in the world. Creative directors who've spent twenty years in the room sitting alongside designers working on their first brief, brand builders, strategists and students who found us at golden hour ahead of a deadline left too late and said it felt like someone had finally written something for them. 

See, that's the part nobody tells you about building something like this. 

The writing and the menu you can shape and refine and hold to a standard. Who walks through the door and the energy they bring with them when they do is something else entirely and it has shaped this house in ways we never anticipated when we were still figuring out what it was going to be.

The conversations that happened in the comments, the DMs, across time zones, industries and career stages weren't part of the plan. But they've become the point. 

Seasoned professionals we deeply look up to pulling up a seat to say the house said something they needed to hear. Young creatives at the start of everything reaching out to say a feature changed how they thought about the work. People from corners of the creative world we never expected finding their way here and feeling immediately at home. Every single one of those moments mattered more than any number on a dashboard ever could.

Open All Hours was always going to live or die by the quality of what it served. What we didn't fully realise until we were inside the year was that the quality of who showed up would shape everything too. The house has a character now that goes beyond what we put into it. It was built by the people who chose to be in it.

Twelve months in and the espresso is still going. The door is still open. If you've been here since the beginning, you know who you are and so do we. If you found us somewhere along the way, welcome properly.

If you're reading this for the first time, come in and find a seat.

The best of what this house will grow to become is still ahead of it. You're early. Depending on whose timezone you're working from of course.

Shot of the good stuff.

Shot of the good stuff.