The owner, Albert Arkwright (Ronnie Barker), is a middle-aged miser with a stammer and a knack for selling.

His nephew Granville (David Jason) is his beleaguered put-upon errand boy who blames his work schedule for his lacklustre social life.

Across the road lives nurse Gladys Emmanuel (Lynda Baron), largely occupied by her professional rounds, and her elderly mother.

Every episode ended with Arkwright delivering a monologue to himself reflecting on the day's events as he closed the shop for the evening.

On 30 January 2014, the BBC commissioned Still Open All Hours for six new episodes beginning on 26 December 2014[2] and ran for six series until 2019.

Albert Arkwright is a pragmatic, miserly man with old-fashioned values, whose world seems to stop at his shop door, except for his uncontrollable lust for Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, which may prompt him on occasion to wander across the road, usually with a ladder, to gain access to her bedroom window.

Arkwright is a devious and mildly dishonest character, who has many crafty tricks to try to persuade a customer to leave his shop having bought at least one thing, and will avoid spending his own money at all costs.

He is also very protective of his savings, keeping some in his pocket wrapped in a fine gold chain, and some in an old, battered Oxo tin that he hides under the kitchen sink.

Roy Clarke visited this small town whilst travelling and was said to have fallen in love with the shop layout and its owner, Len Riddiford.

In the documentary Open All Hours: A Celebration, Sydney Lotterby revealed that the till was controlled with a string by an assistant floor manager in the adjacent room, and that he once accidentally caught Barker's fingers while filming.

The pilot episode (featured in the series Seven of One) used a shop front on the western intersection of Drayton Avenue and Manor Road in Ealing, London, for exterior filming.

The shop was to be auctioned in Leeds on 24 November 2008, and was expected to fetch between £120,000 and £130,000; however, all bids fell short of the reserve price.

The BBC donated, to the British Stammering Association (BSA), two of the false moustaches worn by Ronnie Barker in the series.

The arrangement is borrowed from a 1926 Charles Penrose song called Laughter And Lemons, the b side of the more well-known The Laughing Policeman.

[6][7] Barker noted in his autobiography It's Hello from Him that he received a letter which began "We are a family of stutterers...", that made his heart sink.

In 1984, at which time no new episodes of the series had been produced for two years, a spin-off was proposed based around Lynda Baron's character, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel.