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Economic Development

From £1m new function suite to pandemic pizza delivery - hotel's pivot held up as model of resilience

Stallingborough Grange Hotel had only just opened new 250-seat standalone addition

Stallingborough Grange Hotel owner Heather Dutton with Investment Hub NEL business referrer Ian Girdley, and colleagues Becky Darnell, Anthony Winn and Sarah Brattan, outside The Buttercross Suite.(Image: Reach Plc)

An independent hotelier who completed a £1 million investment in the year before Covid closed her down, has told how she survived the pandemic as the area’s business resilience was praised.

Heather Dutton is the managing director and owner of Stallingborough Grange, the 42-bed rural location on the outskirts of Grimsby.

Once her family home, and convenient for both South Bank industry and as a rural retreat, 2019 saw the completion of the 250-seat Buttercross Suite, creating a wedding and function venue in a new chapter for the business. But within a year she had pivoted to pizza deliveries and serving up doorstep Sunday lunches to keep the business afloat.

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She was host of and guest speaker at the annual celebration event for Investment Hub NEL, the unique signposting and business support service sponsored by the local authority.

Help has been at hand since 2016, and Stallingborough Grange has reached out for assistance with growth and, now, plotting survival.

“Stallingborough Grange is very special to me because it is my family home,” Heather said. “My parents bought the original building in 1971 and over the years renovated the property. My Mum was quite an astute lady, had a light bulb moment, and realised there was a need for accommodation, and turned the house into a three-bedroom hotel with restaurant. 30 years later we have now grown to a 42 bedroom hotel, with a very successful restaurant, bar and flagship function room.”

Heather’s parents Patricia and Gordon Feeney were behind the early regional central heating installation company Micron, but home comforts were sparse in March 2020 when the world as we knew it imploded. All the hard yards done to secure weddings for a new venue, helping pay early instalments off, turned to cancellation chaos as Covid struck - with many ceremonies only just being held now.