Meet Jo and Colin from the The Market Pantry at Hereford Butter Market.
They spoke to us today about the difficulties that they face in the coming weeks and months and their disappointment at Herefordshire Council reintroducing parking charges from tomorrow.
Can you give us a brief insight into how COVID-19 has affected your business?
Well we obviously had to close the business and lost 7 weeks of trading. We tried to adapt but had problems with getting the stock needed to trade. We offered a delivery service and changes to the menu.
Are you excited about reopening on Monday?
No we are not excited about opening Monday. We think people are still worried about going out. To open we will have to stop the delivery service and think we will lose trade, it’s going to be very hard time for businesses.
What are your thoughts on Herefordshire Council’s decision to reintroduce parking charges from Monday?
We offer a takeaway service, so unless the customer has another reason to be in town, they are not going to pay a parking charge to pick up from us. That would be an expensive sandwich! We have lost most of our trade from office workers still working from home.
We think the next few weeks and months will be hard and only time will tell if we survive.
