Features / Clifton
‘The world’s greatest greengrocer’s’
Over the years, the independent businesses in the Clifton Arcade, and further along Boyce’s Avenue, have often changed hands.
There are only a handful that predate the 21st century. Reg the Veg, at 6 Boyce’s Avenue, is one of them.
In 1977, Reginald (‘Reg’) Meek officially opened the now widely beloved greengrocer’s.
is needed now More than ever
Reg was from London but had been evacuated to Bristol as a child during World War Two and had remained ever since, meeting his wife Heather here and starting a family.
Indeed, Reg the Veg was a family business, where Reg, Heather and their children – Jonathan, Helen, Joanna and Stuart – and one of their grandchildren, Louise, cheerfully provided groceries to the people of Clifton.
Louise, now 41, fondly remembers working in the shop as a teenager.
“Customers weren’t allowed to touch the fruit and veg in case they bruised or marked it. We had to write down all the amounts on pieces of card and add them all up in our heads and tell people how much it costs,” she says. “When I first started, people didn’t believe that I got it right but, in time, they started to trust me. My mental arithmetic now is incredible.”
Sadly, after a decade in business, Reg had a heart attack and decided to sell the store to his daughter, Helen.
In 2001, Helen then sold the business to an entrepreneur.
Louise continued working at the store under her aunt Helen but, when she turned 18, decided to swap fruit and veg for coffee and started working at Primrose Cafe across the street.
She worked there for 20 years, during which she gave birth to a son she named Reggie, after her grandad.
One of Louise’s colleagues, during her early days at Primrose, was Beth Swingler.
In 2009, Beth’s partner, Tom Hagon, took over Reg the Veg and now both Beth and Tom run the business full-time.
Beth (left) has been working at different businesses on Boyce’s Avenue since she was a teenager
All the fruit and veg at Reg the Veg comes from the Bristol Fruit Market in St Philip’s Marsh, which is open every day, bar Sunday, from 5am. Tom heads there every morning to get fresh produce.
“We get local stuff as much as we can,” Beth says. “But generally, things (at the market) come from all over the place because everyone wants things all year round… everyone buys avocado.
“Sometimes people ask for weird things, like coconuts or yuzu or mangosteen… dead exotic food which, if you buy, a couple of people are happy but it doesn’t sell because no-one else knows what it is.”
Beth and Tom live in Bedminster but have had ties to the Boyce’s Avenue business community since they were teenagers – Beth worked for years at Primrose and Tom worked at Reg the Veg in the 2000s.
Are these close ties why they didn’t do a rebrand after buying the shop? Not quite.
Beth explains: “We did think about it, but Tom’s granddad was called Reg, coincidentally. Tom loved his grandad, and they had a really close relationship, and he died not that long ago.
“So, it just felt right. Even though it’s not the same Reg, it’s the same name.
“But also, to be honest, we probably would have kept the same name anyway because it’s such an institution.
“Everyone knows the name. It would feel weird to change it.”
Beth says around 80 per cent of their customers pop in daily to pick up bits and bobs as they need them, “unlike a supermarket where you might have to buy a whole packet of something”.
All produce at Reg the Veg comes fresh from Bristol Fruit Market
While most produce is sold in-store, Reg the Veg also has a thriving online delivery service, which they set up during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some of the greengrocer’s regulars are celebrities, including Derren Brown and Carol Vorderman.
Brown recently described Reg the Veg as “the world’s greatest greengrocer’s” on Off Menu, a food and comedy podcast hosted by comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster.
Like Brown, many of Reg the Veg’s customers are full of praise for the business (which, at the time of writing, has a 4.7-star Google review rating) and are fiercely loyal, which is important in a shopping area where “lots of shops don’t make it”.
Another greengrocer, Clifton Fruit & Veg, opened up just down the road a few years ago and “a lot of our customers were livid,” Beth laughs. “It was sweet. We’ve got to know our customers so well…it’s a real community, for sure.”
All photos: Seun Matiluko
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