What Your Faith Means to Us

ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 2020

WHAT YOUR FAITH MEANS TO US

As have many small independent businesses, Little Faith has been hit pretty hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

What’s Happened Since March? 

It feels like a very long time since we decided to close our doors to the good folk of Deptford back in March. We hope you have all managed to stay safe, and look after yourselves and those you love, during these strange, strange times. We have really missed you having you all at Little Faith.   We are delighted to say that we have been able to protect the job of every staff member at Little Faith via the furlough scheme, which was always our number one priority going into this.  

 

Our Battle With Insurers

Unfortunately we were dealt a serious blow at the end of May when our insurer – who we have been in dialogue with throughout – rejected our claim on what we feel are highly subjective and selective grounds. The stance taken by the insurance industry in response to this crisis has begun to attract significant coverage and will undoubtedly be subject to legal challenge in the coming months, but clarification will take a long time – time that many hospitality venues simply may not have.   This news left a hole in our finances, as we have had no money through the tills since March. When you combine this with the tapering off of the furlough scheme, and the uncertainty surrounding future restrictions that may be placed on pubs and bars when they do finally re-open (ie/ reduced capacity) the next few months suddenly look a whole lot harder to navigate.  

When Will We Re-Open?

We have been exploring ways to open up again in various scenarios, always trying to balance the desire to be open against the responsibility we have to protect our staff, customers and wider society. Official guidance has been ambiguous at best, and there have been a great many interpretations of what is and isn’t allowed.  

It appears that in the near future, the restrictions we have all lived with may continue to be lifted, and venues like Little Faith allowed to open again in some capacity. We want to be able to open in a way that is above all safe but can also sustain itself - even in the event that we find ourselves in lockdown again at some point in the future.  

 

How Can You Help

We have devised the Keep The Faith strategy so we can continue to get our beer to those of you who love drinking it - whatever happens - thereby giving Little Faith the best possible chance of surviving this and protecting the staff we employ.

We're selling PRE-ORDERS for Little Faith beer in crowlers (330ml or 500ml cans) for collection from the bar (starting Friday 10th July).

 

By supporting us now, you will help keep our staff employed and allow us to continue to operate as the local taproom that you love.

Your support will allow us to:

  1. Fund the purchase and installation of a crowler machine to allow us to make our beer available to you.

  2. Allow us to start brewing new beers again and any excess funds will then go into brewing more exciting new beers for you to enjoy!

  3. Improve the outside bar to make it a more hospitable area to accommodate you when outdoor bars are allowed to re-open.

 

Throughout June we also gave people the opportunity to become Little Angels, where we offered a number of benefits based on your membership level. As of 1st July 2020 the window to become a Little Angel has now closed.

We have been blown away by the support received through this campaign. It has enabled us to plan our reopening and we feel can't wait to welcome you lovely people back.

So if you have ever enjoyed an evening with us down on Creekside and would like to help Little Faith get through this extremely challenging time, please pre-order beer today. Your support means the world to all of us.

 

Loads of love,

 

Alex, Henry & everyone at Little Faith