Yorkshire restaurant keeps trading as community serves up £20k investment

A Yorkshire restaurant has reported that its adaptation of business has kept it trading and increased its online presence.

Punch Bar & Tapas in Honley has announced that following a £20k investment from residents of the town, it has served nearly 3,000 meals over the last five weeks.

The company received the investment to launch its NHS Menu initiative, which offers free meals for NHS staff.

It has also increased its online presence, seeing a 756 per cent lift in organic engagement on its social media channels.

Since the initial investment, which was launched by Jill and Ian Swire, members of the public have donated an additional £7.5k to the restaurant through a crowdfunding campaign.

Wayne Roddis, co-owner and chef, commented: “Following the COVID-19 restaurant closures in France and Spain in early March, we could see it was likely to happen in UK as well.

“We partnered Jill and Ian to come up with the NHS menu and takeaway idea and the response since has been incredible.

“We’re offering fresh, nutritious, homemade meals to hopefully help make these difficult days a little bit easier.

“We’ve been really busy and it’s keeping the business ticking over through this challenging period. And it means we won’t have a standing start when the lockdown is lifted.”