‘Hull has bucked the trend - our independents are thriving’
AL FRESCO PIONEER: Julie Buffey
Chewing the Fat - Out to lunch with Phil Ascough
This week’s guest: Julie Buffey
Ah, the great outdoors!
Not that trekking, climbing and sailing stuff. Or even bending over the barbecue, singeing your eyebrows and inhaling half a burnt pig while your beer gets warm.
Much better to have someone else take care of the catering and limit your exertion to a few laps of Zebedee’s Yard, browsing the menu of the various stalls and trailers over a slurp or two of cold, liquid refreshment.
Yes, Hull Street Food Nights are back, and who better to share one with than someone who is a bit of pioneer when it comes to bringing an al fresco buzz to Hull city centre.
Julie Buffey launched the Trinity Market ten years ago and wears the brand with pride on the back of her denim jacket. If she had a bigger one she could also add Roisin Dubh, the vintage and shabby chic outlet which she opened in Hepworth Arcade in 2009.
The two business ventures are connected by the people Julie affectionately refers to as “the crafties” – the small army of creatives across the region who make all sorts of handmade giftware and other delights in their homes and studios and take them to places like Roisin Dubh.
Julie said: “I was buying a lot of craft items and the crafties wanted me to sell more of the things they were making. I didn’t have the space to take more but I was discussing it on Burnsy’s show one day and we talked about how good it would be to have a market.”
Julie pursued the idea with Hull City Council and Hull BID provided initial help putting the stalls up in Trinity Square to get things off the ground. Hull Minster was another important partner.
BUZZ: Crowds throng Zebedee’s Yard for a Hull Street Food Night
At its peak the market was running every month from late spring until early autumn and Julie reckons she must have organised about 60 until Covid brought things crashing to a halt. It returned in the form of the Kitsch Market, which ran for several weekends during 2021 and brought the addition of live music from buskers.
“The crafties were delighted to get back because they hadn’t been able to do anything,”Julie said.
The current state of play is pretty fluid. Special markets for Heritage Open Days and Christmas are all but confirmed, but as we approach summer it seems wrangles over insurance are delaying a return to regular events.
In rising to that challenge, Julie is drawing on the experience from her first career when she sorted out the bonuses for plumbers, electricians and refuse collectors at the council. She then worked on HR and personnel projects for Humberside County Council, blazing a trail for equality along the way.
“I didn’t get the job at the city council initially because the bosses didn’t think a young female was capable of dealing with tradesmen,” Julie revealed.
“I got it the second time and worked my way up the ranks before moving into HR and personnel in Beverley. Then when I was pregnant with Claire I assumed I would leave because the only other option was to go back to work full-time after maternity leave.
“My other colleague was also expecting a baby and we found out about job share, so we suggested to the boss I would do two days and my colleague would do three days. He wanted us to do half a day each, every day, but in the end he let us do it our way. We were the first job share at Humberside County Council.”
The part-time work continued after second daughter Rachel came along and, after losing her dad in 2006, Julie hit upon the idea of another job share, this time with her mum, Shirley O’Neill.
Julie recalled: “Retail was totally new to me, and I still don’t like frontline selling but that comes naturally to my mum. I am more about research and the skills I had built up were transferrable to the private sector, and in particular to the market.”
MOUTH-WATERING: A spicy foot-long hot dog and a halloumi and chargrilled pepper sandwich
They opened Roisin Dubh in a unit in Hepworth Arcade, the only L-shaped arcade in England and full of character with unrivalled levels of quirkiness and quality on the shelves and in the window displays. There’s way too much to cram into this, so just go and have a look at the books, clothes, hats, high-end hi-fi, a world famous joke shop, and more.
Julie said: “Straight away in 2009 business boomed and then we had the recession. City of Culture was absolutely brilliant, and again when we returned from lockdown. Since then it’s been steady.”
It was through fighting the corner of local independent traders that Julie gained more recognition, earning a coveted good mark from Hull Civic Society and a Hull BID ambassador award before being invited onto the BID board in 2014.
Julie said: “I’d been approached with various things before and turned them down but I felt passionate about Hull BID and as an outsider I could see the value they were adding, especially for independent businesses.
“It is quite a privilege to sit there representing the little shops alongside some of the big players. We have bucked the trend in Hull. The grants and furlough helped the smaller independents to survive and a lot came back after Covid. Other places have not done so well. I went along Regent Street and Oxford Steet on a recent visit to London and there are a lot of shops just selling cheap tat.
“Ever since I have been here I have seen the independent sector grow. The refurbishment of the market attracted a lot of new independents. Some of the traders from Trinity Square moved into the market and they bring fresh ideas.
“The outdoor market also brings a different audience into the city centre because the people who trade elsewhere have their own customer base which they have built up from events all over the East Riding and on the south bank. People follow their favourite traders to Hull and they discover the other great things we have in the city centre.”
The market doesn’t do take-away food but it pushes shoppers towards the array of food stalls in the indoor market. Hull Street Food Nights don’t start until the food stalls in the market have closed for the day.
Julie said: “Hull Street Food Nights keep people in the city after work. In most cases, even if they go home it’s to get changed and come straight back, or failing that they’ll note the date of the next event.”
IRRESISTIBLE: Trays of cannolo at Alessandro’s
We arrived early, grabbed a bench and a beer and watched Zebedee’s Yard start filling up with hungry, thirsty people enticed by the aromas of global cuisine – the Far East, the subcontinent, Greece and Italy representing Europe, a Caribbean option and an all-American smokehouse.
We chose something from Hull’s deep south – Tribal II on Humber Street. A foot-long hot dog carried a bit of spice heat but not too much and came with onion flakes and grated cheese. Julie went for a sandwich with a slab of seared, creamy, halloumi and chargrilled pepper accompanied by salad and squeezed into a breadcake. All good.
There was ambitious talk of trying the loaded fries from one of the other stalls, but not for long as thoughts turned to desserts. There’s a picture of Julie standing guard over some trays of cannolo at Alessandro’s. Three pieces for a fiver – who wouldn’t? I spent the same amount on half a dozen churros in a cardboard container complete with a little pouch for the chocolate dipping sauce. No picture of that because it would have meant putting them down. Who would?
The hot dog and halloumi came in at £6 each, and I doubt you’ll get anything like such a fair price at the festivals later this year. The beer, priced at £3 for half a pint, was Madri, a Spanish brew which landed in Hull last year and has for some reason replaced the Stella in the Burlington and the Hull Cheese. Back in the early 1980s it was said that the Cheese sold more Stella per head than any bar in Europe. I couldn’t possibly comment without conducting further intensive research.
For me, Madri had the dubious distinction of tasting better in the plastic of Zebedee’s Yard than in the glass of the bar where I first tried it. Maybe some ultra-clever entrepreneur has responded to lockdowns and festivals by creating the perfect beer for outdoor occasions, or maybe that’s just the drink thinking?
We left before the start of the live music and comedy shows but otherwise got our timing spot-on, finishing our main course and freeing-up our table ready to enjoy those desserts as we strolled.
There will be more Hull Street Food Nights in Zebedee’s Yard on Thursday July 7, and Thursday September 8. In between, on Thursday August 4 the event moves to the Marina as the curtain-raiser for the Yum! Festival of Food and Drink over the following two days.
Julie herself will be taking Roisin Dubh to the Yum! Festival: “For Hull Street Food Nights some of the non-food businesses stay open late because they know the event pulls the crowds. I’ll be selling at Yum alongside Watt 2 Wear, Samsara, Bad Wolf Gaming and other non-food businesses. It’s all about partnership and collaboration”.