There’s no denying that it’s been an incredibly challenging year, the toughest in most of our professional lives. The hospitality industry has been hit hard with numerous lockdowns, guidelines and tier restrictions, it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions since March. None of us knew quite what to expect and we’ve had to be flexible, nimble and proactive.
However, we’re optimistic about the future and re-growing our business to be bigger and better than pre-covid, as a team we’ve reflected on some of the positives we can draw from a shocking year.
Getting back to basics
Like all businesses in our industry, our revenue was switched off overnight. We were forecasting a buoyant 2020/21 on the back of a great finish to our financial year at the end of March. With nearly 70% of our business being conference and events, an area of hospitality still yet to return, we were hit harder than some other sectors of the industry.
The team had to throw all our energies into the parts of the business that we could re-open. With a smaller team, many of our roles have changed and become more customer focussed – getting our hands dirty in the restaurant, getting closer to our customers (socially distanced of course) and getting back to why we all love delivering great hospitality.
Since Rotunda re-opened in July, it’s been heart-warming to welcome back some loyal customers alongside a host of new visitors. We’ve adapted our marketing approach, as our traditional audience of concert-goers and local office workers diminished, we turned our efforts to weekend trade and local residents. As a result, Saturday has now become our busiest day of the week and we’ve launched a weekend delivery range.
Community and Charity
Playing a role in the local community has always been a huge part of what we do at Green & Fortune and COVID-19 hasn’t put a stop to that.
We’ve been making and donating 100 meals a week to two local charities, the London Irish Centre based in Camden square and the Copenhagen Street Foodbank. We initially became involved to support local residents in need during the lock-down period but it’s now become part of the company’s charitable commitments for the foreseeable future.
This is a great way for us to use our expertise, but also to keep our chefs engaged during the lockdown periods, they would volunteer one or two days, which they enjoyed as it kept them busy.
Looking after the G&F family
Our focus on people has always been at the centre of the Green & Fortune story. Like many other organisations we’ve sadly had to make the heart-breaking decision to say goodbye to some great people in the last year.
However, we couldn’t just leave it there. These people are still very much a part of the extended G&F family and to ensure they felt this, we launched Green & Fortune Supports to assist our displaced employees. The support scheme includes mentorship, training, the offer of free meals and financial support if needed, everyone who has worked for us in the past year was offered a Christmas meal for them and their family to collect and cook at home.
The reaction and engagement from both existing and past team members has been fantastic to see and we’ll be here for these people for as long as is needed.
Welcoming a new site
We started 2020 on a high with the news that Green & Fortune was awarded the contract as exclusive operator of all hospitality and retail catering services at Central Hall Westminster, adding a third venue to our operations.
The agreement commenced on 1st March and includes catering for all corporate events in the venue’s 25 spaces, its concert programme and the 150 seat Wesley’s Café within the building as well as a street café. The first few months of the year were spent in the mobilisation period, planning, ordering, getting creative and welcoming new members of the team. Within a couple of weeks of launching operations, everything changed and we were in lockdown.
Although it’s not the perfect way to commence a partnership at a new site, we’ve loved working alongside the Central Hall team over the last year and can’t wait to pick up where we left off when the venue re-opens later this year.
Looking to the future
Who knows what 2021 has in hold for us, only time will tell.
But if this year is anything to go by, we do know that whatever challenges come our way, we are ready to face them and will do so with a smile on our face.