31/12/2025
Hey everyone!
Ashe here, hoping you have been enjoying the festive period however you choose to celebrate :)
I would personally like to thank each and every customer this year both old and new, for continuing to support us and believe in what we do. Myself and the staff are wishing you all Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing you in 2026!
Now for the not so wonderful. There is every chance that this may be our last Christmas at Divine. There’s a chance we may not make it to our 15th Birthday in April. Let me explaIn the situation to you.
We’ve previously been honest about how hard the last few years have been. Starting with the Covid situation in 2020 followed by the energy crisis in 2022 where our monthly bills for electricity ballooned from £230 a month to almost £2k a month with no tariffs available. We have since been stuck on a tariff that sees our average monthly bill at around £500. A massive increase for a prolonged period. Last year we also spoke of a backdated HMRC bill for VAT which we needed to clear. Unfortunately, costs continued to rise. Every ingredient, every bill, wages increases, rent increases etc etc. To try and help mitigate this, we had to make the decision to increase a lot of our prices in 2025. Sadly, this kind of backfired a little. Whilst we have served more customers than ever before, customer spend has dropped drastically per head and we are selling fewer items overall. We understand, inflation and price increases have been happening across the board this last couple of years and many simply do not have the same spare money they once did. This means that whilst being busier to a degree, our revenue has remained the same as the previous year. Sadly, this means that we haven’t been able to clear the outstanding debts and when factored in with continued rises in costs at an almost monthly rate since then, we are actually working with less money than ever before once bills and costs are taken out the equation.
We are meeting with HMRC in early January to try and sort a path out of the red but the realistic fact is, we need to clear debts AND cover our current statutory expenses with VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax and we cannot afford to miss any payments once our proposal has been agreed.
It’s not all gloom and doom. We have been busy working on a multi step plan behind the scenes. We have secured cheaper card processing rates due to start in January and we are currently working on new menus and options made in house to bring costs down plus we are planning more evening events to increase revenue.
As we move in to 2026, we will do our best to get through this and out the other side. We will need help, though. We cannot expect everyone to magic up more money to spend with us but we can ask for the local community, the vegan community and the lgbtq community to support us as much as possible in the coming months. Recommend us to friends, share our posts, stop by if passing through Sherwood. With your help, we can do this.
See you all in January. Have a great New Year!
Much love,
Ashe and the team.
