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We Love Citrus

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Hi everyone,

Let me introduce myself (Ross) and my partner (Jason). When Jake's uncle died suddenly a couple of years ago at the same time as him being made redundant and whilst I was suffering with depression and anxiety, we were surprised that Roger had left Jake some money.

We took the opportunity to invest in a business local to where we live and we bought The Greedy Pig (as it was named at the time), an under-performing sandwich and coffee shop in the heart of Kelsall.

The owner had lost heart and wanted to relocate, we needed to find a new income for both of us and we took a leap of faith to invest all that we had in the shop.

Fortunately, with our love and care, Citrus was born two years later. We have managed to turn the business around and we've been welcome and supported by our local community and cannot thank them enough.

Unfortunately, like so many, COVID-19 has hit us very hard and being self-employed, even more so. We have had very little government support (but we understand, they didn't need to give us anything) and what little we had ran out very quickly simply keeping the shop 'ticking over'.

We had to stop employing our team, Julie and Ollie who have been a valued asset to our success. We also had to scrap our plans to invest further in the business.

Jake and I have spent all of our profit to date on the business, buying new catering equipment, new technologies for ordering online, integrated website and till systems, fridges, freezers and new kitchen etc.

We had been saving up to replace the counter, cake display, coffee machine and most importantly, our awning outside which is a god-send in sunny weather and rain. We have a beautiful outlook surrounded by flowers but sadly, the awning has torn severely and desperately needs re-canvassing. After months of searching, the cheapest we can find a new one for is between £3500-5000. We simply cannot afford this.  We've taped the awning up with black duct tape for now but it won't hold for long and it still has the old branding on it, we've just painted it to disguise it.

We, like many food places such as ours run on very small profit margins and have a lot of competitors. We do what we can to offer amazing value for money and the latest events have really put pay to our plans to make these modifications.

We are lucky to be situated in a thriving rural community and we benefit greatly from several large events including the Chester Folk Festival, Manchester 100 Cycle Ride and others which allow us to save for investment. Again, these have been cancelled this year due to the Pandemic.

We have re-opened and are doing what we can to keep the business going and we will continue to invest in our business and we know you all love what we are doing.

If anyone would like to offer whatever they can, every penny we raise will be spent going straight back in to our business to make it even better for you. We want to be able to offer you outside seating (when it is safe to do so) and the highest quality of food and drink we can. Any support you give us will go right back into doing just that and we can't thank you enough in advance!

Organizer

Ross Brunton
Organizer

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