We were just recovering from one of our worst months since opening – we had been shut for most of the Christmas and New Year period, had staffing issues, and had bills to pay including suppliers and wages.
Kopi that! Setting up a new business is hard enough without the threat of a global pandemic. Former EastLife journalist, NATALIE BRITTAN tells us, a year on, how her UK coffee shop, Carbon Kopi, has faced the challenges of Covid-19.
I remember it as if it was yesterday. It all happened so quickly — the order on March 23, 2020 to shut down all essential retail and the decision to give away all our food, milk and other perishable items. We quickly rang our best customer, John, who volunteers for a homeless shelter to come and pick it all up which he did in a heartbeat. As Covid-19 hit, we were just recovering from one of our worst months since opening – we had been shut for most of Christmas and New Year, had staffing issues, and had bills to pay including suppliers and wages. We scraped together whatever little we had, borrowed some money from family and managed to pay off everything we owed. Thankfully, at the time we both had full-time jobs to rely on – Chris had his I.T. job and I had my marketing job. There wasn’t much time to mull over our decision – it was a
22 | eastlife | may 2021
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