At the time of writing this, we reflect on another "would have been" few weeks.
This week for example, we're watching classic Wimbledon tennis matches from years gone by instead of being glued to the live action.
This weekend would have been Henley Royal Regatta with Pimms and picnics by the river.
Instead, we're picnicking at home or in friends' gardens, deciding whether or not to venture to the newly re-opened pub, or just find another box set to binge watch.
Whatever is going on in the world, one thing remains constant - the shop is still open and full of lots of lovely goodies and the key basics, so we don't have to venture out too far if we don't want to, or still can't.
So what's been happening in Ewelme Village Shop world?
We're still serving from the door, which seems to work quite well, and ensures that we keep our staff and volunteers safe, and our weekend team of Carmen, Emily, Amy, Daniel and Freddie have settled in to a new way of working very well and we're delighted to have them back!
The shop has still been very busy (which we're delighted about!), but we still face financial challenges because what we're selling has changed during lockdown. Our tea room, though not large in size, makes up 20% of our turnover in "normal" times, and contributes a significant amount of the gross profit we need in order to cover our fixed costs (wages, insurance, electricity etc).
As the tea room has been closed for most of lockdown, meeting our running costs has proved a big challenge and we're very grateful to have received support from many corners of the village in the form of financial donations to help us stay open.
So we'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has made donations to the shop during this period. It really does mean a lot and ensures that we can keep providing a much valued service to the community.
What's new?
We are very excited to announce two changes coming in from next week!
From Tuesday 7th July 2020, we are extending our opening hours Tuesday - Friday until 4pm!
And that means we're welcoming back some of our brilliant volunteers!
We've already had some volunteers helping Tracey in the mornings, but we're delighted that we're now able to bring back even more people to cover the afternoons for us and offer more in the way of takeaway tea room goodies!
That brings us onto the second change:
We're extending our current basic offering in the tea room from next week.
We're still keeping it takeaway only (our lovely little shop isn't blessed with a lot of space, and we're not able to accommodate social distancing in the tea room sadly), but we hope you'll like the new menu.
From Tuesday, we'll be offering a range of sandwiches (made to order), hot drinks, cakes and tray bakes.
From Wednesday 8th July, we are introducing a brand new line to our tea room takeaway menu: Summer Salad Lunch Boxes!
We're very excited to be able to offer a freshly made daily salad, in a takeaway box with a fork, perfect if you fancy something different. If you're still working from home and fed up of the same old lunches, pop down and see what we've got on offer!
Next week's offerings will be:
Wednesday 8th July: Oriental Chicken & Mango salad
Thursday 9th July: Roasted Butternut Squash & Feta (vegetarian)
Friday 10th July: Deli Pasta salad with Prosciutto
Here's a little something to whet your appetite!
We really hope that you'll like our new menu and give our summer salad lunch boxes a try, or just pop down for an afternoon treat!
Stay safe and remember to keep supporting local!
Comments