What was also clear to see is that he is a business man that operates with compassion and integrity. It is clear to see that Ramón has put in a lot of work to ensure that the business continues to function during all of this and I can certainly vouch for the quality of his food and coffee. As people start to venture out again in the evenings I’ll start to see an increase in profits, but for now I am just happy that we have been able to adapt and continue to open.” I know that in the long run the business will be in a much better place and this is exactly what I dreamed the business model would look like. You can imagine how many espresso, lattes and cappuccinos that would take to make the same profit, not to mention the effort from staff to clean and reset tables. Previously I could sell two bottles of £850 champagne and it would be gone within 10 minutes. The evenings are still quiet and we are only making the same profit we were making three nights a week before.
It’s still tough times for us and we are working a minimum of 100 hours a week. It’s the dream to be able to successfully offer wet and dry sales, day and night and now we are able to offer that. In a way, it was quite positive for the business. Lockdown meant I was forced to react very quickly and make the changes I had planned for the business while the bar was forced to be closed. It would have had the same impact on my business anyway. Having lockdown meant that I didn’t have to make the difficult decision to close a profitable bar. The whole refurb and change over to a kitchen and bar took 4 weeks alone. “It was a devastating blow to be told we couldn’t open, but I have to look at it in a positive light. The bar now opens 7 days a week and 6 evenings a week and has even started offering a brand new brunch menu that is proving very popular. It was something he had always planned for the bar, but the lockdown meant that these plans had to be accelerated so that he could continue to keep the business afloat. Ramón realised very quickly into lockdown that the only way he was going to survive was to start offering a food takeaway service. We went from breaking even, to doubling that within a week! It was still a nerve racking time, just trying to make sure that we were adhering to the council guidelines and constantly offering the clients what they wanted.”
HUMMINGS APP FULL
It wasn’t as busy as we had liked, which was a concern as we had hired three new full time staff to operate the café, but as soon as people were allowed to sit in again we saw a huge increase in trade. We had a very quiet takeaway service running so that we could keep the business going. We opened through lockdown, although in hindsight we opened a week too late as people were starting to go back to work, but at home.
HUMMINGS APP HOW TO
We got a coffee machine and stayed up for days and nights learning how to make coffees, which is a lot harder than it looks! We completely remodelled the space, found a chef and decided it was time to try day time food. We decided to use the lockdown to strip back the place and make the changes we had planned, but hadn’t had the time to do before. We were told we couldn’t actually trade at all. “January, February and March were really busy, private hires were through the roof, but then Covid happened which took us a million steps back. Then came the unimaginable news that the bar would have to shut indefinitely due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Shortly after taking on the bar, business was good and the bar was busy every week, with some people splashing out on numerous bottles of £850 champagne. For a boutique bar in a niche market, offering high-end cocktails and champagne, this was enough to make a reasonable profit. Ramón only purchased Hummings bar back in January and back then it was solely open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. My reason for interviewing him, is to understand just what this local business owner has had to do to ensure his bar survives the lockdown. Ramón has been working around 100 hours a week to make sure that his bar and café survives the global pandemic and he tells me he has not had a day off in 9 weeks. I can’t see Ramón’s normal welcoming smile, but I can see that his tired eyes are trying to convey his warm welcome above his mask. I don’t think any of us could have predicted or imagined being sat in a café surrounded by signs telling us to keep our distance and staff wearing surgical face masks.
Ceris Hymas, Head of Marketing at PMW, interviews Ramón, the owner of Hummings Bar in Esher, to find out how he saved his newly acquired business from an unexpected lockdown.
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