The boss of a Midlands pub business has described how telling staff he was closing them down – before the Government stepped in with the furlough system – was one of the worst days of his life.
Sam Hagger said he had no way of knowing what the future held as the coronavirus took hold back in March.
All he knew was that the business was no longer sustainable - at least in the short-term - as the lockdown started to take hold.
Mr Hagger, who runs the Beautiful Pubs Collective, said he made the tough decision to mothball the Knight and Garter and the Rutland and Derby pubs in Leicester, and the Forge Inn, in Glenfield, before the bailout was announced.
Now, with staff signed up to the government furlough scheme, he is tentatively looking at reopening the Forge before the end of July – with clear social distancing guidelines in place – and using it as a dry run for reopening the two Leicester pubs.
His business had decided to stop managing the Richard III, also in Leicester, prior to the lockdown.
Mr Hagger, a former LeicestershireLive Business Executive of the Year, said: “We will come back from this and are really positive.
“We closed down three days before the enforced national closure because our cashflow got to the point where our takings were not meeting the costs.
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“That was the worst day of my career because there was no furlough scheme yet and I had to tell 80 people that we were closing the doors. We said they would get at least four week’s pay.
“In the end it was the right decision because we were able to close the pubs down properly – we moved all the food to the Forge to cook and distribute for local people in need.”
He is now working on plans to come out of the other side of the lockdown.
Pubs in England could start reopening as early as July, but the move would have to be supported by scientific advice on the spread of the virus.
The Government’s roadmap to ease lockdown – which applies to England – says hospitality venues could start to reopen from July 4 at the earliest.
But government sources have repeatedly stressed this might mean cafes or restaurants with outdoor seating areas at first – not pubs.
Sources had indicated pubs would not be in the first wave and would only come in later phases, after July – with not even beer gardens allowed to reopen.
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Meanwhile, scientists have warned some social distancing rules might have to remain until there’s a vaccine, meaning packed pubs, bars and clubs will be a long way off.
Mr Hagger said: “Our pubs premises won’t all open on the same day, but it will start to happen once the Government is a little bit more clear.
“It may be a bit more difficult for the Rutland and Derby because it is harder to socially distance in there, so we will open the Forge first because it has more square footage.
“Opening that first will allow us to work out the perfect way to operate – we have already started working on things like outside hand-washing.
“I would say it’s going to be extremely difficult for the hospitality sector, because of the way people become more sociable when they unwind, but we will have to see what the guidance is.
“I don’t think we will open before the end of July, because we don’t want to get things wrong. If it’s not enjoyable and people don’t want to return then there’s no point doing it.”
He also said he had been hit by the fact that his pubs were not eligible for support such as business rate relief – where leisure, retail and hospitality businesses with a rateable value of less than £51,000 are exempt from paying business rates over the next financial year.
It meant, he said, that “if the Rutland and Derby was independent it would be bankrupt”.
He said: “We stopped trading right after what is typically the hardest part of the year, when the bills were due, but cashflow has stopped.
“There will be lots of businesses in the city centre that don’t have that same safety net. There are going to be businesses that don’t come back.
“We’ve spent 11 years building the Beautiful Pubs Collective up and always been prudent and never borrowed money. If we had loans we would be in a big mess.”