10/07/2023
We have a very difficult message to write to you. Hard because we are still shocked, upset and angry. Everything has happened so quickly we haven’t yet managed to digest what has just happened. To help everyone understand we need to jump back to January 2023.
Certain parts of the restaurant were not sub metered for electricity, heating and water but despite our request for recharge invoices, we never received any. Until February when we were invoiced for nearly a years worth in one hit. We expressed our frustration at this poor invoicing practice (see photo) and met with one of the managers.
We were told it was understood and a line would be drawn under those invoices and they could be paid back at a later date when more achievable, See photo).
The Retreat has undergone multiple management changes since then and the vision for the retreat, which as we understood it was a plant based Mecca for wellbeing, stays and food was fast becoming something very different.
Fast forward to June. We were approached by the estate manager advising us that as part of their insurance renewal, their insurer required an inventory of the retreat and they would start with the restaurant and cookery school. A slightly odd situation but as some fixtures were owned by the retreat we believed them.
It wasn’t until we noticed our cutlery being counted up that we suspected something was strange about this. We immediately put in a call to the estate but no answer, no returned call and we were ignored for the next couple of weeks.
That brings us to last week. Peter was called to a meeting out of the blue to meet with the estate manager and retreat manager. He was told the lease would not be renewed in November. This was a big enough blow but what then unravelled is almost unbelievable.
He was told the retreat wanted offbeet out in 24hrs citing they had a change of direction and wanted to offer meat, fish and dairy going forwards. How could they do this? By issuing a statutory demand for the historical debt and threatening if unpaid winding up proceedings would then commence. In fact they had gone as far as drawing up the statutory demand prior to the meeting and gave us 24hrs to decide. We pay, or we leave. And when we say leave, we mean leave everything we installed, purchased and the beautiful restaurant and cookery school that we had created. Just like that, gone.
Luckily we aren’t new to the tactics of rich bullish land owners. So we instructed a solicitor to act on our behalf.
Sadly though without a venue and without many options we have closed both Offbeet New Forest and The Cookery School.
12 extremely amazing employees lost their jobs overnight and there were lots of tears. Some of those staff are in vulnerable positions and we are doing our best to support them through this.
As if we hadn’t taken enough, the retreat have the audacity to put a post up claiming we made the decision to close. The decision was made for us and as for the staff. They don’t give two sh*ts what happens to our staff. Their brief was simple, get us out, quick and at whatever the cost.
So here we go again. It’s not what we want, we have cried and broken down more times than we can count in the past week. But what they probably don’t know in their ignorance is we created donutgate and we do not lay down for bullies. 🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩.
For any of our wonderful customers worried about pre booked lessons, meals, etc. we will be refunding everyone but it may take us a week or two to catch up with everyone booked onto lessons, tasting menus etc. We thank you for your patience with this very tricky time, as if it wasn’t already hard enough in hospitality!
Anyone wishing to support us, with links to media, papers, news, or simply want to share our story, we appreciate your support as always and we are standing not just for us but for the others we know have been poorly treated at the hands of this estate. 🙏
