While villages across the dale have lost their local shop in the recent years, Etherley is bucking the trend.
Businessman Matthew Flinn opened The Little Village Shop along Church View on Monday last week and is already enjoying a roaring trade.
Mr Flinn also owns the Vape’ry manufacturing business in the village and has opened his grocery store in part of the building.
He currently stocks non-perishable foods, a variety of sweets, cold drinks, milk, cleaning materials, personal hygiene products and, of course, the Teesdale Mercury.
The 37-year-old said: “I created a shopping list and I have just got the bare basics in. I left some of the shelves empty as I wanted to see what locals wanted in the shop. I am getting recommendations, and I have a shopping list of more things that I need to go and get.
“I still have to get fresh produce for the fridge.”
The father-of-two said: “I have a huge order of sweets coming in because I’ve had all the kids coming in over the last couple of days and going mad for sweets.”
Of the success of the venture in light of shops closing elsewhere, Mr Flinn said: “Because I already own the building I don’t have the overheads that opening a new shop would incur – obviously it does need to cover some aspect of that but the room was doing nothing here anyway, so it might as well be doing something.
“I think there is nothing else in the village, so I think I can run it quite successfully.”
Currently the shop is open from 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday, but he plans to extend the opening hours in the coming weeks with the help of his wife Keira.
