13/03/2024
I must have written and rewritten this post a hundred times. It feels like a Dear John letter 😪
As you may be aware, I've been trading at Eastville Park for 3 years now. In November, Bristol City Council asked me to re-apply for the pitch, with some extremely shady contract terms, and a painfully convoluted application and bidding process. After months of very stressful deliberating, I have made the decision not to reapply. We will cease trading at Eastville Park on March 31st.
I am utterly bereft. I can't begin to explain how grateful I am to the community for embracing Kind Regards like you have, and I am honestly just so, SO gutted I won't get to see you all each week.
As much as I truly love what I do (and know that feeding the public coffee and cake is what I will do until my dying day), running a business like this solo is an enormous challenge and has become unsustainable for me.
I have worked 60+hr weeks, and every weekend, for three years. My house is now mostly a prep-kitchen, and that kitchen is about to have a huge amount of emergency work done as I have discovered I have major subsidance issues.
Tbh there are countless other impracticalities that I won't bore you with but I will say that BCC's inflexibility and lack of support are certainly a contributing factor to me coming to this decision.
We will continue to open Friday to Sunday 8.30 until 4 for the next three weeks, so if you've always meant to visit and not got round to it or it's been a while, we'd really appreciate your support in this final phase.
It's definitely not the end for Kind Regards Coffee Co and belive you me there's a lot more to me than toasties! My dream of a real kitchen in a real building with real tables and chairs WILL come to fruition and I'm not selling the truck anytime soon so here's to whatever the future holds and more exciting adventures ahead! (After a massive sleep and a holiday)
'mreallysorry