Save Truly's from the Covid-19 Crisis

Truly's is an independent restaurant in the Bournemouth suburb of Westbourne. The small, 30 seater restaurant, opened in December 2018. It has been a roller coaster from day one. No amount of business planning can prepare you for running your own business but this is a business of passion not vanity.

We are lucky to have gained a good local following with many regular customers, we won a Dorset Food and Drink award after just 9 months of opening and we consistently appear in the top 10 restaurants in Bournemouth on TripAdvisor (out of over 550 other restaurants). All, a true testament to the hard work and thousands of hours that we have given the business. This all sounds wonderful right? But the highs have been equally matched with the lows from the front door blowing off its hinges 3 times in the first year (with every named storm) and some staff issues resulting in magnificent fees from temporary agencies... the list goes on.

The business was developed and opened by the owner, Lauren, whose vision it was to bring beautiful food and wine, with excellent and lovely service to its customers in a laid back environment, as such the phrase "laid back fine dining" was developed.

The plan was to learn, learn, learn in year 1 and develop from this and grow, grow, grow in year 2. We DID make mistakes and could have done things differently in year one but we HAVE learned from this and do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Simple. 

February 2020 was our record month, up 90% YOY and then came the coronavirus and instantly we were down almost 100% YOY even before our PM asked customers to avoid restaurants and the ultimately close them all.

We were on a good track for success in 2020 and now those dreams are crumbling around us.