Henry and Jess Herbert have just taken over a butcher's in Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol. Photograph: Fiona Beckett for the Guardian

One of the few unexplored effects of last week's riots is what impact they've had on Britain's beleaguered small shops. Tesco, of course, can quickly repair windows and carry on trading. It's much harder for a small greengrocer or family butcher to pick up the pieces.

And that's really hard because, as we know, it's the small shops that are in decline and badly need our support. As far as butchers' shops are concerned, the numbers are already well down. There used to be some 22,000 in the mid-90s, according to Ed Bedington, editor of the Meat Trades Journal. In 2010 there were just 6,553.

A butcher at work at Bristol's Ruby & White. Photograph: Fiona Beckett

But the good news, as I point outin this piece in G2, is that there seems to be a fair number of new butchers opening, albeit in more prosperous parts of the country. Take Ruby & White, a flashy new place in Bristol where the beef matures in a glass-fronted temperature-controlled ageing room, as cheery butchers josh with the customers and chefs marinade and barbecue meat with music on in the background.

It seems strange to me that you have to bolt on all kinds of extras to make a go of things these days, trading not just a butcher but an all-singing, all-dancing mini-foodhall stocking cheese, veg and even wine. The big advantage independents have is that the staff are more likely than your average assistant on a supermarket meat counter to be informed about where and what animal your meat is from. And it's not as if they can't compete with the supermarkets on cost either: Henry Herbert of Hobbs House Butchery in Chipping Sodbury is selling aged hanger steak for £9 and home-cooked ham for £7 a kilo less than the supermarket down the road. They, along with his stellar scotch eggs, appear to be pulling in the crowds.

Other produce on display at the same shop. Photograph: Fiona Beckett

Convenience is one of the most important factors in choosing where to shop, which is why the supermarkets do so well – not only in offering the widest range of goods, but in when they trade. The main problem with small shops in the UK is their opening hours: they usually trade from nine to five, exactly when it's least convenient for people to use them. In France and elsewhere in Europe, shopkeepers close at lunchtime so they can stay open late – although this isn't ideal either, as a lot of people shop between 12 and 2pm. As joyless as supermarket shopping is, it's straightforward and maybe that's what matters these days. Most of the new butchers I spoke to were opening late and on Sundays, except Hobbs House, which was offering local customers an old-fashioned delivery service instead. Why don't more shops do that – or at the very least an out-of-hours pickup service at, say, a local pub?

"You have butchers' that have been trading since 1815, operating the same way as they did in 1815," says Adam Denton of Ruby & White. "Butchers have to change with the times." He's right. But will it be enough to break the supermarkets' stranglehold on our weekly food shop? I hope so.

How do you think we could bring more butchers and other food shops back to the high street?

And also in The Guardian today:

Fiona Beckett from the Guardian Newspaper featured Hobbs House Butchery in an article dated 17th August 2011 on the opening of butchers shops across the country. Read on for full details of the article.

Henry and Jess Herbert have just taken over a butcher's in Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol. Photograph: Fiona Beckett for the Guardian

 In the current economic climate, you'd think the last thing you'd want to open is a butcher's shop. True, we Brits are still great meat-eaters, but the traditional butcher is an endangered species, with numbers down almost a third in the past decade. Most people buy meat, along with everything else, at the supermarket. And the modest top-end trade is being siphoned off by smart new online businesses such as the East London Steak Co.

The message doesn't, however, seem to have got through to Adam Denton and Dave Kelly, who have just opened a swanky butcher's, which wouldn't look out of place in Knightsbridge, on the recession-hit Whiteladies Road, Bristol. Shops and bars may be boarded up around them, but at Ruby & White (named after the cattle breeds Devon Ruby Red and British White), they're busy barbecuing on the pavement, while rock music drifts out of the door.

Inside, the shop is expensively kitted out with slate, oak, open brickwork and glass with a kitchen at the back worthy of a luxury showhome. Cheery butchers behind the counter work on their cuts facing the customers. They create fresh marinades with refreshing ingredients such as lemongrass and chilli. An upstairs area sells cheese and wine, while the basement houses a vast glass-fronted temperature-controlled ageing room where beef is matured for up to 45 days. With Sainsbury's a few yards up the road in one direction and Waitrose in the other, it seems insanely ambitious.

Denton has form, however, when it comes to running a successful business. His company launched Magners, kick-starting the cider revival. And although he and Kelly have every intention of making a profit from the shop, the bulk of their meat business is based on sales to upmarket local restaurants such as celebrity chef Michael Caines's Gidleigh Park, and Denton's steak restaurant, The Cowshed, next door. They buy direct from local farms, cutting out the middle man, which enables them to keep prices reasonable, and have even borrowed Tesco's trick of selling three-packs of meat for a tenner.

Perhaps some collective madness has overtaken the West Country, as Ruby and White is not the only new kid on the (butcher's) block. Just outside Bristol, in Chipping Sodbury, chef Henry Herbert and his wife Jess have just taken over the butcher's next door to his family's bakery, Hobbs House, where he is turning out the sort of posh gastropub fare he used to serve at the acclaimed Coach and Horses in London's Clerkenwell. The counter is full of fat, meaty sausages (including a triumphant pork and black pudding recipe), homemade chicken kievs, Italian meatballs, confit duck, ham and parsley terrine and old-fashioned veal-and- ham pies. The scotch eggs, his Coach and Horses trademark, are flying out so fast I only just manage to nab one. Still crisp from the fryer, the yolk still warm and slightly runny, it is sublime.

London, of course, has always had fancy butchers such as The Ginger Pig (which opened its first store in Borough market in 1996 and is soon to open its fifth in Shepherds Bush), but the capital has seen a couple of notable new openings this summer. June saw former racing driver Jody Scheckter's Laverstoke Park launch in Twickenham, selling meat including wild boar and buffalo from his organic and bio-dynamically run estate. And, a couple of weeks ago, ex-Harvey Nichols meat buyer Paul Grout joined forces with Mark Wise of London wine merchant Planet of the Grapes to open Meat N16 in Stoke Newington. Like Ruby & White, it has a wine area with bottles arranged by their suitability to drink with different meats. And, as if that's not enough, they're planning to open a brasserie in the basement, and will also run cookery classes on subjects such as sausagemaking.

The clear message is that, these days, you have to be more than a butcher, which includes staying open later, when people can actually shop (all except Hobbs House have extended opening hours). "You have butchers that have been trading since 1815, operating the same way as they did in 1815," says Denton. "Butchers have to change with the times."