Hare today, gone tomorrow. Bidding farewell.

Yes, I can barely believe it myself.   Now in its eighth season, Yellow Hare is upping sticks and moving on. It has been one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. I’ve had the happiest customers one could wish for in the dreamiest location. It has never been just a shop or a business to me. It has been a labour of love, offering a lifestyle I adored and a warm and welcoming family of a different kind.  But I’m a fidgety sort and living out life behind the counter when I have so much still to do has been unsettling.  I spent the best part of a year wrestling with this until a seismic shift in personal circumstances took the decision out of my hands. Nothing dramatic. Nothing ominous.  It’s just time.

Having Yellow Hare; creating it, running it, being there daily, has been an undeniable pleasure and a joy.  And yes, it’s been all-consuming but in the best possible way.  I’ve met the most interesting people, ranging from those who have travelled the world twice over to others reluctant to step off Tiree for more than a few days at a time.  I have heard fabulous tales of life and longing; discussed politics and nature; debated everything from the meaning of life to how excellently well-stocked the Co-op is. And now it’s someone else’s turn.

Whatever direction it may take, it’s a business that will struggle not to succeed.  Not simply because of where it is, but due to the scope it offers. The launderette, the shower, the ferry traffic, the island, being a holiday destination - they all play their part. There’s no such thing as easy money but this comes close. The harder you are prepared to work, the greater the rewards, both financially and mentally.   For the first six years I ploughed everything back into the business in order to mould it into what I wanted it to become. It would have taken five had the pandemic not intervened. We are on season eight and the past two have exceeded expectations.  2024 accounts show an impressive turnover and healthy profit. Despite the quiet of winter, it’s now entirely viable as a year-round business and a far cry from its first two years operating at a loss over winter.

It's been a fascinating journey.

I vividly recall using the Hydro Electric Shop decades before it became Yellow Hare. It’s where I purchased my first television.  A small white portable with a carry handle and its own arial

attached.  The best I could afford at the time, and even then it was on the never-never.  It cost £50 and I paid it up over six months. There was no remote control; they weren't commonplace in the 80s. We had to get up and walk all the way over to the television to change channels or adjust the volume.  Heaven help us, how did we cope?

The Hydro was where we paid our electricity bills and bought white goods.  You could get things repaired there too, or request a call out. It was a great wee place. When it closed almost forty years later and the building came up for sale, I leapt at the chance to buy it even although I was no longer living on the island.  It had been a long-held dream to invest in Tiree and I knew the pier would be the ideal location.

The Hydro shop had four rooms; the shop floor, a toilet, an office and a store.  I stripped it right back to its four breezeblock walls.  Just me and my trusty sledgehammer.   I travelled from Edinburgh for a week at a time to knock down partition walls, chop up fixtures and fittings, remove rotten plasterboard and ceilings and a floor that had been hard-set for decades. It took three months and four skips to strip it out. I made the decision to lay the new shop floor on my own.  I’d never laid ceramic floor tiles before but it looked straightforward enough.  As it happened, it was the worst decision ever, but I did it, beginning at noon and working through until the last tile was laid at 4am.  I had wanted to stop several hours earlier but I’d made far too much adhesive which would all go to waste and hold things up.  Materials are not easy to come by on Tiree.

The Journey

Everyone who helped build Yellow Hare was local. Jimmy Slowther from Scarinish did most of the plasterboard work on the walls and ceiling, and styled the counter.  He also re-tarred the roof. Kyle Munn, an apprentice joiner at the time, did all the partitioning and studs. Tommy Monaghan and Paddy Munn fitted the sliding door that separates the laundry from the café and bolted the signage above the door. Keith Langley and Johnny Campbell (Oban) did the electrics.  Alun Jones installed the plumbing.  I did the painting and decorating.  It was ready to open six months after we got the keys. The launderette took a further three months to instal. 

Doreen MacDonald and Ann Hayes were our first long-term staff.  Doreen had worked in the original Hydro building for almost twenty-five years, so it was fitting that she should be back behind the counter.  Both Ann and Doreen had another link to the building too;  it was Doreen’s brother-in-law Danny Gillespie who built the Hydro building in the sixties and Ann’s husband Billy Hayes (Andy in the Co-op’s dad) who did the joinery. The workmanship that was applied to something so basic is their legacy.  The building’s foundation has a minimum of twenty four inches of cement – as we discovered when installing the laundry – and the wood-framed pitched roof is as solid as the day it was formed.  They were built to last in those days.

I loved our bijou café and gift shop.  We were the first bona fide coffee shop on the island.  Yes, others served coffee, some of them good coffee, but we were the first to make coffee our primary focus, flying staff off the island for training on how to produce the perfect latte.

We could seat eight customers. Queues snaked out the door and across the road during ferry times.  For the first three years, between twelve and two was our quietest time because we didn’t do lunch or snacks.  We had scant room for staff and less for catering equipment.  We had a sink, a coffee machine and one cupboard. At best we could accommodate two behind the counter. There literally was not enough space for three.

Fast forward to today and we are twice the size and able to seat 24 inside and 60 outside. Strictly speaking, we have outside seating for 80 (four tables that seat eight and four tables that seat twelve) which thankfully have never been maxed. We lease the land on either side of the shop for a nominal fee, one area is grassy and it belongs to Argyll Estates; the other gravel and it belongs to Cmal. It all works well.

Day-to-day it’s a busy business, with key moments of extreme busy-ness when there’s a big draw on the island such as Will’s 10k/Half Marathon event, or the Tiree Music Festival.  It’s a very difficult business to fail to make a profit on. 

For sale is the building that Yellow Hare occupies, the launderette, an outbuilding, a new large storage container and almost all fixtures and fittings including café furniture, picnic area furniture, and our trusty espresso machine.  What’s not for sale is the name Yellow Hare, one of the coffee grinders and the retail till system. They are coming with me to Edinburgh.

The business doesn’t come with staff, although that doesn’t mean one or two may not welcome the opportunity to return. Will Wright and Frances Khetrat are long-standing staff who have other far more important jobs elsewhere.  They haven’t always worked with us all the time but nonetheless have been an extremely important ingredient of Yellow Hare’s successful recipe. Will’s positive, upbeat approach has helped shape our own and Frances’ experience and continuity has saved my sanity on many an occasion. There are others – ‘returners’ I call them – who appear annually for a working holiday of two-to-three weeks.

And that is all the sales pitch you’ll get from me.  I’ve handed it all over to the selling solicitors.  They are responsible for the administration, valuation, notes of interest and the sale. I'm steering clear of that. Forgive the melodramatics but it’s all too traumatic. I’m skulking off into the shadows and leaving them to it.  It’s no accident that this is being announced whilst the shop is closed for a week.

I’m not inclined to lease; too much of a headache. Retaining it and having someone to run it is also a headache of a different kind. It’s time to let go.

There is no rush to sell, but whether or not it is snapped up, Yellow Hare will close shortly after Tiree Music Festival.  I know and understand that this will be a disappointment to many but personal circumstances are dictating the closure date. If I can find a way round this, I will, but for now our last hurrah will be late July.  The ideal scenario would be for a new owner to take over seamlessly so that any closure is minimal.

And does this also mean relinquishing our beautiful Tiree house?  Is this really to be a clean break?  Yes.  The house goes on the market next week, but I'm not focussing on that for now. One trauma per day.

I shall miss you enormously.  Over the years I have laughed a lot, learned a lot, talked too much, not listened enough, on occasion said the right thing, quite often the wrong thing and in the process irritated many, I’m sure. I have gained far more out of this adventure than you, my much-lauded customer, of that I'm certain, but I do hope some of you will look back with fond memories of a dream shared that you helped become reality.

For any questions or queries relating to the SALE please contact MCEWAN-FRASER directly, details are on the sales brochure which you can download here.