Well, I didn’t expect the pub trade to be easy. We came in at a bad time. We did know that buying-in to a summer pub in the autumn probably wasn’t the best idea, but we also knew that we only needed to get through the winter, before business would pick up.

The winter was probably harder than we’d expected, but we did get through it. But now, there’s Coronavirus. At first, the impact on business was slow, with no change in business. This week began with a busier than usual Monday and Tuesday, following a pretty decent week. But, then, Wednesday happened. The pub was empty during the day, with just a handful of customers coming to eat. The teatime regulars were there as usual, but daytime trade just dropped right off. Yesterday, usually a busy day, was the same. I wasn’t there last night, but the signs of a really poor night were there.

We’re now approaching the weekend; actually, Friday is usually a good extension of the weekend. If business continues at this rate, and the weekend is a failure, we’re really going to struggle and some hard decisions are going to have to be made.

The Government have announced grants, and we will qualify for one, but there’s no information as to how these can be claimed. Apparently, this is coming next week. However, with the assumption that any money would come through mid-April, that leaves a pretty big gap if we’re losing money every day and still need to pay staff and buy stock.

Right now, there’s not a lot we can do. Let’s see how the weekend goes.