Little Door & Co needs your help!
The hospitality industry has suffered an almighty series of blows from the Covid pandemic and our much loved bars, The Little Blue Door, The Little Yellow Door and The Little Orange Door have not been spared!
Bar businesses like ours have been among the worst affected. With lockdown measures still putting massive restrictions on our ability to do business, we are facing a reality where revenues are at a fraction of what they ordinarily would be- all whilst government support is being dialled back.
We are passionately proud of our business and even more fiercely protective of our amazing family - the individuals that run our unique and extraordinary venues. At the moment, we are fighting to keep the venues open and our team in jobs- and it really is a fight.
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Our Story:
We are a young, growing brand pioneering a new slant on the hospitality industry. Our aim is to create venues which feel like walking into a home by styling them around a fictional flat share. The result is a bar and restaurant concept which is welcoming, inviting and unpretentious.
It was our vision of the perfect house party; a place where people could meet in an unpretentious environment and have whatever party they wanted, from chilling in the corner to getting wild and dancing on the tables. It was where we would want to hang out with our friends, and it's where we did. And so the journey began….
Since growing the business to record revenues and press applause, the two managing directors, Jamie Hazeel and Kamran Dehdashti took investment to populate streets far and wide with coloured doors- and Little Door & Co’s inimitable take on having good times. Since then, we have managed to open three venues across London and, at full capacity, employ over 70 people.
The Problem
Whereas a restaurant is able to operate at between 70-80% of it's normal occupancy, we are hit much worse as the majority of our capacity is standing. With large group bookings and events being the bedrock of our business, under social distancing we were only able to take between 40-50% of our normal revenue.
Now, the 10pm curfew has halved our revenues yet again.
With furlough coming to an end and the new job retention scheme barely scratching the surface of what is needed, we are facing some very difficult months - and a very realistic possibility that it will become more economical to close shop and put the business into hibernation.
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Our Aims
We have three key objectives in the face of this overwhelming series of challenges:
· Keep Our Doors Open: Our venues are much loved parts of their neighbourhoods and integral to their social fabric and the local economy. If businesses like ours don't survive, our streets will be much poorer for it. We are going to do everything in our power to keep our lights on and continue giving people a great night out!
- Keep Helping Our Community: We've already begun some amazing initiatives to support our community since lockdown started, lending our kitchens to Family Meal and The Felix Project to conjure up thousands of meals for NHS Workers, whilst recently launching Brunch for Hospitality, offering £1 meals to workers in our industry. Your generous donations will help us to continue giving back to our community.
· Keep Our Team in Jobs: The Job Retention Scheme makes little sense for salaried staff and absolutely none for the part timers who make up the majority of our teams - people who are the most exposed without income. That leaves us on our own to support these people. Your contributions will be directly invested in keeping our staff in jobs.
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The Solution
Aside from supporting the day to day running of the venues, your contributions will be invested into a number of initiatives which will help us adapt to the restrictions and maximise the revenue we can take over these next few months of continued social distancing. These include:
· Changing our layouts and furniture to maximise covers under the "rule of 6"
· Putting in place infrastructure which will allow us to open our venues during the day as home-working spaces
· Marketing new, specially adapted offerings including socially distanced dinner parties, cocktail masterclasses and bottomless-cocktail-fuelled brunches.
· Launching delivery options of our menus
· The creation of post 10pm takeaway party packs - so customers can continue experiencing our brand responsibly at home.
· Retraining staff to take on and fulfil a variety of roles
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The Future
We strongly believe that with your love and support, we can make it through the challenges of the next few months. If we can preserve our venues and the amazing teams who run them, we know that we will be able to flourish on the other side and return to doing what we do best, house parties and dinner parties, and giving people the time of their lives.
Please donate generously and enjoy the amazing, one of a kind experiences on offer!