Watch House Coffee started life at a small yet cosy ‘watch house’ on London’s famous Bermondsey Street, historically a shelter for men guarding St Mary Magdalane Church graveyard at night. Further locations followed at a former spice factory near Tower Bridge and on Fetter Lane in the City, where you can enjoy your coffee under its long grass roof and leafy ceiling.

Partner Charles Hodder has been working with Watch House Coffee over the past two years, advising them on their commercial leases; most recently on the Fetter Lane site.

Menkind started in 2001 as a gift shop that offered ‘I’d-really-like-that-for-myself’ kind of gifts. The gift and gadget store continues to grow and expand with the acquisition of tech brand RED5. The brand now has 66 stores across the UK.

To see what’s instore, or to buy online. Click here.

To hear about similar cases, please contact Terry Fendt. 

In September, Partner Stephanie Kierans helped Giggling Squid open their 37^th restaurant yet in the Old Library on Wheeler Street in Cambridge.

The opening marks a new chapter for the beautiful building which has been exquisitely decorated by the co-founder, Pranee Laurillard, taking inspiration from Thai traditions. This is the restaurant chain’s largest premises to date and reflects their ambition to continue with their expansion plans.

To find your local Giggling Squid, click here.

This year has been hard on all of us, especially so for smaller, local businesses. That is why, this year we have worked hard to ‘shop local’ and make sure that gifts for our staff, clients & friends of the firm are supplied by local, smaller businesses. Buying local means that any money spent goes straight back into our local economy, helping local jobs and helping to save our struggling high street. Are there any ways your business could shop local? With huge thanks to Dylans, Bishops Cave, Simmons, Baked by Nicky, The White Lotus Cake Company, Gingers Bread House & more for helping us make Christmas extra special this year. Not only have we been shopping local, we’ve also been supporting local charities too. We’ve set up a ‘reverse advent calendar’ and asked staff and friends of the firm to donate food for the St Albans District Foodbank – a collection point has been set up in our reception area, and we plan to drop off the donation before Christmas. If you’re in the area, feel free to pop in and donate! It is set up to be non-contact and Covid-safe. Also, we have once again supported the St Albans knitted postbox trail (our postbox is on Stanhope Road) to help raise funds & visibility for the St Albans District foodbank. Click to find out more about this campaign and ‘The Yarnbombers’ of St Albans! As part of our Sustainable Sherrards group, we have asked staff to donate their old technology for the Computer Recycling Centre in Hertfordshire, who will wipe & sell on old technology, with any profits made going to charity. I found several old Nokias when clearing out my house during lockdown – sadly not many of Team Sherrards recognise them as mobile phones! And finally, myself and Lawrence Levy of Levy Associates, both of us VPs of Rennie Grove Hospice Care, held an informal Zoom chat to launch the Rennie Grove Christmas Campaign. This year, a whopping £30,000 has already been raised. This will fund 1 month of nurse care, providing support and reassurance, so that patients can remain at home together with their loved ones this Christmas.  If you would like to find out more, please click here. Further afield, our international alliance, Alliott Global, have had a very smart rebrand. Alliott Global is a leading alliance of independent accountants, law & specialist firms, which we are proud to be part of. This means we have contacts and good friends, around the globe, to help you and your business anywhere in the world. These professionals are local to their area and truly know their jurisdictions like the back of their hand. If you would like an introduction, do get in touch, or click here to find out more. Finally, I want to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year and thank you for your huge support this past year.