“Some sort of normality will be lovely” - Spen Valley businesses ready for the grand re-opening

Pubs and restaurants across the UK closed their doors in March as the coronavirus lockdown was introduced.

But now they are getting ready to open up again, along with hotels, bed and breakfasts and campsites across the area.And business owners say they are relieved to finally be welcoming back customers after their prolonged shutdown.

Jonathan Murgatroyd, owner of Hannah’s Restaurant and Bar in Birstall, said: “All the social distancing and cleaning measures will be in place, all the toilets are one-in-one-out.

“It’s just taking the time to think about what could spread the virus.

“It’s been so hard having a business that’s closed but the bills keep coming and there’s nothing coming in.

“We’ve got two floors here. We only really use the upper floor at Christmas so by spreading things out a bit I think we’ll have the same tables we had.

“We’ll lose some in the main restaurant to gain social distance, and if we open the upstairs area we might just gain those back.

“But it’s still a very worrying time and I think there’s a lot of restaurants that are going to go because the bills keep coming and if customers don’t come in there’s only one way to go.”

Alan Ingle, who has been landlord at the Pear Tree pub in Mirfield for 10 years, said: “We’re excited, but the guidelines that have come out are so stringent that we’ve only got a week to prepare for them.

“I’m blessed with the fact that we have a big outside garden area. We can fit 250 people in our beer garden, but we will be doing bookings only for drinks and food.

“There’s no standing allowed indoors, so unless there’s a table available, you won’t be able to have a drink.

“Outdoors you can stand but there has to be social distancing consideration.

“We have a downstairs bar we’ll be opening and I’m looking at possibly putting some scattered tables in the car park so at least people who turn up, if there isn’t a seat available, they can wait for a table.

“We don’t know how busy we’re going to be, if we’re going to be rammed or not.

“We have to take everybody’s name and address who visit the building, but do they want just a postcode? We can see problems there because how many people are going to give their real names?

“It’s still a bit unclear but all we can do is put in place what the government says we have to and take it from there.

“We’re relieved to be re-opening of course but I would’ve preferred a soft opening, either on the Thursday before or the Monday after.

“Everybody’s off on a Saturday and you’d think everybody’s going to want to go to the pub.”

The Gallery Tapas and Grill and Revive Hair and Beauty are all based at the same location in Heckmondwike, but not all the business will be re-opening.

Manager Toni Davies said: “We’re opening our hair and beauty salon on July 4, but we’re not sure about the cafe yet, which is being refurbished.

“It’s hard to make it work if you can only have half the capacity.
“The Gallery and the hair salon are downstairs, and the beauty salon is upstairs, but we can’t open that yet.”We’re hopefully getting back to normality but we can only work at about 50 or 60 per cent.

“It’s a big business and when you only have a third of it open at 60 per cent, everybody else will have to be furloughed.

“Normally we’d do an afternoon tea in the cafe then they’d go upstairs and have treatments, then have their hair done.

“The beauty and the hair salon is the main part of the business, but the government has said we can’t re-open it all.

“Some of the girls are frustrated because they don’t want to be sat at home, and the clients are frustrated because they can’t get their hair done.

“It does all need to be open and running like it was before but until we get the go-ahead from the government we’re a bit stuck.”

Susan Dawson, owner of the Geordie Pride Lodge Hotel in Liversedge, said: “We’ve not been fully closed anyway because we’ve been accepting essential workers, but we’ll be back open to the public on July 4.

“It’s allowed us to do a bit of renovation. I’ve contacted all my regulars to say I’m allowed to take them back in and a couple have already started to book in.

“On the weekends it tends to be people who are visiting family, so they’re excited to make plans to visit them.

“When businesses start to re-open, we’ll get more of the business clientele back through because we get a lot of reps Monday to Friday.

“Obviously people are a bit scared but I’ve always had very good reviews for my cleanliness, and with only having six rooms I can keep it personal so we don’t have to worry about staff or cross-contamination.

“We’ve got hand sanitisers and gloves, once they’re in the room they have their own cleaning products.

“If they want me to go into the room if they’re here for more than one night, that’s fine, if they want me to stay out of the room I can give them extras.

“We’ve been doing takeouts or breakfasts as room service during lockdown but the room is only quite small so I can do a maximum of four people at any one time because of social distancing, whereas before it was 12, so people will have to pre-order and give a specific time.”

Susan is pleased to be re-opening, and hopes the area will start to flourish once normality returns.

“It’s more out of boredom as much as anything, but just to see my regular faces as well,” she said.

“We had one of our best years last year so I was really looking forward to this year.

“We’ve invested a lot on the rooms and I just need people to come back in and sleep in the beds!”It’s been nice to have a bit of time to re-evaluate and calm down a bit.

“The New Inn, opposite us, are re-opening - it’ll just be nice to see everybody come back to life.

“It’s been quite eerily quiet. We overlook a playing fields and it’s only this last week the children have started coming back because they can mix a little bit. When it’s hot weather we’re used to always seeing lots of children playing there.

“Some sort of normality will be lovely. I think we will bounce back but it’s a question of how much money have people got in their pockets.

“I’m hoping it’s not going to affect me massively, and possibly because it’s a smaller establishment it’s less scary.

“I think people realise that small independents need help, we are employers and we are trying to make a living.”

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