Always on
This project successfully funded on 3rd April 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
Support our family business The Duck on the Pond
Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Aim
Help us save our family business by raising funds to pay our mounting debts. If we raise more we want to create a shop for the community
Our family of three, myself Hendrik and our son, little Otto, came to The Duck on the Pond in 2022. We had left our first venture post Covid after being unable to afford the Brewery’s increase in rent. The silver lining was that we found this amazing place surrounded by countryside and wildlife. We couldn’t wait to share this with others and come up with some amazing menus as well as experiences. There is so much potential in this little slice of countryside charm. - We had enough space to grow our own vegetables and really embrace the farm to fork philosophy that is so important to us. We were joined by team members that had become family and have stuck with us. We also adopted team members from the Duck who are also still with us
- Supporting us through lots of hard times this is genuinely a family team who all care for each other and we value dearly.
- In 2023 our second son Eli was born and we became a family of four. We could not have done what we’ve done without Viktorija and the team’s support all the way.
- We have thought for many months, if not years about appealing through a crowdfunder but always believed we could do it ourselves and things would be ok.
- We have to ask you all now for that support to please help save our family business here at The Duck on the Pond. We are struggling to keep afloat with backdated Vat payments amongst a plethora of other bills. The hospitality sector is struggling and margins are so narrow we are loosing out week on week. We want to remain serving the best quality produce and don’t want to sacrifice that for our guests.
- We believe the welfare and biodiversity of the food we eat and how we garden to be one of the most important factors of this time. We want to be able to continue growing in our kitchen garden and using local suppliers, in turn contributing to our local community and other businesses.
- If we can raise the funds to get ourselves back on an even track with VAT debts we can focus on just paying our weekly bills and continuing to offer our best service , quality food, drink and experiences to our guests.
- If we are lucky enough to raise even more we want to go further to give back to the community by developing a village shop or honesty shed as there is no shop in our village and we have already had great interest in our bread ordering system. This could become such a convenience for those that can’t get out as much in our village.
We want to thank you all in advance for helping us achieve these goals and look forward to a brighter 2026.
With love, Julie, Hendrik, Otto and Eli and all of our family team.
(Here are some photos of our beautiful Duck on the Pond and some of the team members.)
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made