Show Your Local Some Love
These are tough times for everyone, and that includes our local independent businesses many of whom were already feeling an economic squeeze before lockdown. Some are doing their best to support their local communities with takeaways and diversification into deliveries of essential supplies. Check out our regularly updated online services and home delivery listing for more information. However, others have closed – hopefully only temporarily. If you want to support your favourite locals, we have a few suggestions.
1 Buy direct. While supermarkets have struggled to keep up with demand, local independents have stepped in, this has included cafes, pubs and restaurants providing takeaway menus and selling their stock of ales, spirits and wines etc. Contact your local café, pub or restaurant to see what they are doing. Support can be mutual.
2 Buy merchandise. Some cafes, pubs and restaurants offer reusable coffee cups, mugs, bags and cookbooks etc generating much-needed income. For example THE PIG is the eclectic hotel group's first book, and a great resource with simple recipes and kitchen garden tips. Or there's Chef/Patron David Wykes of Verveine, the innovative fish restaurant in Milford on Sea, who has created an inspirational cookbook of the same name. And producer Blackberry Cottage has a cake bake book with a difference (picture taken from the book) - the choice of ingredients allows us to use up what’s in the veg box!
3 Write a review. That compliment you’ve been meaning to post? Go for it. Give the owners and their team a morale boost. Let them know they’re remembered and how much you enjoyed eating and drinking there. It will provide great inside info on the local area as we look ahead, with hope, when we will all be out and about, eating out and socialising again.
4 Virtual visits. We may not be able to visit in person, but you can follow your favourite cafe, pub or restaurant on social media, engage with them (some are holding online cooking courses), subscribe to their newsletters and post a recent picture - tagging in the business.