BADGER ·
thebadgeronline.com
·
16th November 2020
THE
Official free fortnightly newspaper by and for Sussex students · Printed on recycled paper
Brighton businesses feel lockdown struggle As a city famous for its independent businesses, Brighton is finding it difficult to bounce back after the first national lockdown. Megan Taylor With the second lockdown underway, many who have so far managed to stay open are becoming increasingly worried about the future of their business. The Badger spoke with two of Brighton’s independent businesses in the hospitality sector about how they are feeling about the 2nd lockdown.
The current situation: The first business The Badger spoke to was Presuming Ed’s- a quirky café on London Road owned by Richard Grills. Richard said that his main goal for the business since the first lockdown was to ‘put smiles on people’s faces.’ He said that with everything going on at the moment it is important to retain a sense of community. When asked how his business is faring since the first lockdown Richard said ‘financially we are doing fairly badly but marketing actually quite good bizarrely. We had a licence for 5 years and people didn’t realise we sold alcohol but since takeaways become more of a thing we got a whole new crowd of people.’ Richard’s café, like most other establishments in Brighton, has been struggling
financially ever since the first lockdown, but luckily for Presuming Ed’s he attracted a new range of customers once people started getting used to being limited to takeaway services. Richard stated that ‘you have to try and keep positive’. He relies on customers who enjoy ‘having a good natter and a gossip’, as these are the people that make his business what it has come to be known for, somewhere ‘a bit silly, to give them five minutes of happiness’. ‘even with the government support… recovery is a long way away’ Paula Boujibir-restaurant manager of quaint Italian restaurant Caffe Aldo- talks about how her business was affected by the first lockdown: ‘It’s had a massive impact on our business, not just through the lockdown itself but in the run up during February and March too’ She stated that the business had a ‘greatly reduced income due to the wariness of the public to eat out. This was reduced by approximately half the average income during a normally quiet period anyway. During lockdown this fell to under a third.’ Caffe Aldo is one of many
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Joshua Talbot Oliver Mizzi businesses going through financial difficulties since the beginning of lockdown. These difficulties do not just affect the businesses themselves, but the staff who work there too. Given that we have been in a state of at least partial lockdown since March most businesses either don’t need to or can’t afford to take on new staff. This has sadly meant a huge number of people in Brighton are now unemployed. Many people who previously had full time jobs, such as those in managerial positions, have now been forced to apply for temporary and part time positions and job search engines such as indeed are seeing 600 applicants per job. The hospitality sector
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seemed to have been hit the hardest with people, as Paula said, being afraid to eat out. She said ‘even with the government support for the business, recovery is a long way away’. The 2nd lockdown ‘We were prepared for it before but now we are not’ As the infection rates climbed even higher than they did back when the first lockdown was announced, Boris Johnson called for a 2nd lockdown beginning 4 November. Once this 2nd lockdown was announced many people feared that it would affect the economy as it did the last time, possibly causing yet more redundancies and closures. Continued on page 3...
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