 |
| Staff party at the BEGINNING of the evening! |
I'm not sure what is to blame: Brexit, the weather, cost of being here or what??
We do know that the local shops were reporting footfall down by up to 20%, which seems to be in line with national averages of around 15%, but of course if people are not coming to Salcombe to shop then they're not going to be going in the pubs to eat and drink.........
New Year was a different one mostly - we were very, very busy as anticipated but there were no fireworks this year and why we're not quite sure. At midnight there couldn't have been 30 or 40 people in the Whitestrand carpark whereas normally it is thronged with people. Even the Police didn't hang around.
However, our fully booked NYE was a huge success and I was mightily proud of my team as always. The magician (Magic Mark) was brilliant and The Old Gaffers were just superb with a very appreciative audience.
We've had some horrible incidents in Salcombe over the last few weeks, petty vandalism which we're just not used to in this glorious part of the UK. One of our window boxes was destroyed for no good reason and other damage incurred at the same time by (we think) the same mindless yobs!
The town is certainly undergoing change right now: The Co-Op has arrived in Salcombe and appears to have been quite well received, Sea Chest is closed down and now being renovated - but for what we don't know. The KA is undergoing a major refurbishment as we all said a sad goodbye to Neil and Claire now they have retired and the old Lloyds bank is currently being gutted.
Scaffolding seems to be everywhere in Salcombe and we understand that the green light has been given to major car parking works in the current Shadycombe car park??!! But whether that is fact or the great Salcombe rumour mill is anyones guess!
On top of that we've been able to have no flipping fire in our wonderful fireplace due to a brick having been dislodged. There was much shaking of heads and mutterings of a 'very big job'!! (Gawd help us!) But good news, apparently we shall be having scaffolding erected next week and hopefully to get it fixed as soon as possible!
Now then, good news and about the wonderful Gin collection we have! Fabulous new additions to our gin selection have arrived! This bumps our number up to 55 gins on our bar! As well as the 'normal' Salcombe Gin we now stock ALL of the limited edition Salcombe Gin varieties, Arabella, Mischief, Guiding Star and Finisterre. Blooming 'andsome they are too! Selling well too.............We've had a few 'Celebs' in town this season, Rod was rumoured to be in Timberland, and one or 2 others who my team knew but I had no clue as to who they were. We had a footballer from back when as well as Jim Davidson and Monica Galetti from MasterChef was in town.
Our revised Winter menu will be in place shortly and we hope there's going to be no repeat of the Beast from The East as promised.
Stay warm and snuggled up my dear friends and readers,
Much love till my next ramblings,
Liz x
