27/08/2022
Dear Customers,
This post has been a long time coming. 🙂
I finally feel a little ready to talk to you and address many of your questions about Re-opening Royal Frituur.
We apologize for the lack of communication. It has been a very difficult time for us personally. Switching off from social media updates was not a conscious decision; it just happened organically. It was becoming a little overwhelming to deal with our personal matters and handling business issues at the same time.
Over the past few months, we have been forced to take a close and hard look at our lives. As any self-employed person (and in our case, family 😵💫), our work and personal time are intertwined.
When we took over Royal Frituur, it was equally exciting and exhilarating as well as scary and challenging. I truly believed and still do, that I am more than up for the challenge!
It's a joyful privilege to operate and serve our customers while continuously trying to elevate the experience.
However, as with starting any new venture that has its own challenges,
we also encountered many other external events after our take-over of the business. While most of it were happy and beautiful moments for my family (like welcoming our second baby), others were completely out of our control such as Covid-19, lockdowns, travel restrictions… etc.
It feels like a lifetime and it also feels like just one minute; but it has taken us this long to see that we might not be able to continue as we are at the moment. A necessary re-evaluation of our daily lives became important.
Speaking on behalf of Stan, he is considering a change away from the frituur. It became very apparent that it was not bringing out the best in him. We feel he owes it to himself to look for something different. He decided to pursue something new but firstly to focus on his mental health. With all the new adventures we share in our lives, he experienced a burnout and has decided to follow the recommendations of his doctors and to step down from his role in the business from May onwards.
For me personally, my family and kids are my first priority. I have tried to maintain my focus on the shop but with the summer holidays and with Stan taking time away to work on himself, I couldn't continue juggling between priorities.
I have therefore decided to take a little time off to refocus my attention on our children and to see how better to employ my energy for myself and my family.
So, I too, will step away from the business for some time.
It has taken a toll on me to sit down and write to you about this.
Royal Frituur became my new baby. It is very close to me and my personal mission (speaking as a vegan who used this platform to bring out a better experience for vegans and for those curious to try).
Unfortunately I pushed to the limit and so overworked myself, that it is now affecting my health. I am forced to listen to my body and to take a step away from the business. I want to be there first and foremost for myself and my kids, so that I can relearn how to navigate once more and find my way back to the business.
Our dear Royal friends, stay tuned! We are hanging in there and we are trying our best. Closing our doors is not an easy choice. It hurts us financially way more than one can think. We still have to pay rent, utilities and other expenses.
So if we close our doors even for a day, it really is about not having a choice at the moment but to do as we are doing.
We know that there are a lot of solutions out there to try. Believe us when we say we are doing everything we can to learn and to study our options.
We hope our customers can understand what it takes to run a business here. We are hopeful. With good energy, pure intention and some luck everything will settle well!
With this notion I have put my efforts to find someone who can help us manage the business and takeover operations while I recover and focus on my family.
I would like to assure our customers that staying true to the signature of Royal Frituur is very important for us.
Vegan and vegetarian food will continue to be served as always.
Royal Frituur will always be the place where everyone can eat! Vegans, vegetarians and non-vegetarians can always find abundant choice!
Stay tuned and hopefully soon we will have some exciting updates!
P.s. A big big heartfelt thank you to our customers who have reached out to us privately with support and understanding. It meant the world to us to see that the love you have for our business can extend to understanding us as people. ❤️💚❤️💚
