Business owners in Bristol’s hospitality and leisure sectors have spoken of their excitement and a return to normality after reopening with the latest easing of lockdown restrictions.
On Monday, May 17, pubs, cafes and restaurants welcomed customers back inside while other indoor entertainment venues including museums, galleries, cinemas and recreation centres were permitted to open their doors again.
At retail hub Cargo, a collection of units based in converted shipping containers in the city’s harbourside neighbourhood Wapping Wharf, business owner Ella Riggs reopened her yoga and fitness studio Elevate on Monday for classes for the first time in six months.
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After running online courses during the pandemic Ms Riggs said it was “really exciting” to take classes in person again.
Ms Riggs said: “We have been really well supported by our students, by the community and by Wapping Wharf.
“The landlords have been fantastic. They’re really keen on the studio doing well. It just feels great to be back in real life, back doing what we do.
“Zoom was great, but it really was a means to an and. For me and the rest of the studio, it’s just great to be back, moving in person.”
The independent studio, like other indoor exercise and leisure businesses, has had to make adjustments to ensure it is ready to welcome back customers.
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Ms Riggs said: “At Elevate we’ve got lots of Covid measures in place to make sure everyone is as safe as we possibly can be.
“The studio is air purified, it’s well ventilated. We ask everyone to sanitise on the way in and the way out. We deep clean the studio, before and after every class.
“We encourage people to bring their own mats. And if they do use a studio one its cleaned. We’ve got reduced classes too.
“The capacity of each class has been dramatically reduced so that we can really be with everyone who is in the room safely. We’re doing everything we can.”
Many eateries and bars in Wapping Wharf, and across the city centre, saw customers return indoors - but for some hospitality venues, which have no outdoor space, it was for the first time in months.
Keith Rundle, operations manager at Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (BID), hailed the unlocking on Monday as “huge” for businesses after a “long and torrid time.”
“It's key for every hospitality and leisure business in the city. It's important that people feel confident in coming back and are equally careful, remember the rules that everyone must follow to keep everyone safe, to make sure that the reopening is sustained and continues towards June 21 which is the next key date.”
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Outside of the city centre, bar and eating establishment The Red Church, on Church Road in St George, was finally able to fully open after repeated disruption to its plans caused by the national lockdowns.
General manger Fi Selwood-Miller explains: “Originally we were supposed to open in April last year, but that was the first lockdown so that didn’t happen. We managed to open in October, although we were still waiting for some building work to finish because the first lockdown stopped all that.
“In October, we opened for about a month or so until the November lockdown happened. It was a really good month, we found our feet and enjoyed it. And it gave us a bit of a test run. We’re able to come back stronger now and know what we’re doing a bit better this time.”
Ms Selwood-Miller said she felt The Red Church was not too disadvantaged by not having an outdoor space, with other pubs with beer gardens able to serve customers outdoors from April 12.
Ms Selwood-Miller said: “We were doing takeaways during the last lockdown on Fridays and Saturdays so we did continue with that a little bit.
“We thought it would quiet down as other gardens were reopening. It just gave us more time to prepare for our actual opening.
“Although it was annoying that we couldn’t open it meant we had a bit of extra time on our hands to get ready to open for today.”
Kelly Brice, the landlady of The Fire Engine pub, next door, also waited until Monday to welcome back regulars.
Ms Brice said: “We’ve got a very small garden and it wouldn't have been worthwhile to open, and I’m glad we didn't as the weather was so up and down so you couldn't guarantee the custom anyway.
“Those extra five weeks didn’t make a difference and it was nice because I was able to go out and socialise in other local businesses with my customers, so you could support other people at the same time.
"That was nice to do, to be able to go to another pub and be able to support them. I enjoyed it actually, it was nice to have an extra five weeks off!”
On her own pub’s reopening, Ms Brice added: “It feels like we never shut. It’s the same customers having the same drinks, talking about the same stuff. It’s nice to have some normality again. It feels like I haven't been away.”