Huge gas and electric bills doubling has caused a low-cost shop and café helping residents who struggle to afford food to close this weekend.
Minehead Community Café selling cut price food and offering affordable meals for locals opened in October, last year. The south Manchester shop used as a treatment room and community hub, also puts on evening activities and events for older residents on limited incomes.
Yet since May as energy prices increased sharply, Open Kitchen has struggled and has now announced it will leave the café in Old Moat, as energy bills and supplier prices became unaffordable for the project.
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Café regular Alan Weguelin, who lives nearby, said: “I moved into my part-owned flat a year ago, and it was brilliant. There was always enough food and the shop was well stocked just like a corner shop, but it’s empty now.
“This place is vital for us to socialise, and as a café was advertised to us when signing with Southway (housing), it might be part of the reason people came to live here.”
Since Minehead Community Café found itself struggling financially, they tried everything to get grant funding but couldn't, and will be forced to shut today (October 30).
Open Kitchen Manager at Minehead Café, Thompson Sunerton said: “With the cost of energy bills increasing, especially for a not-for-profit organisation, where we rely heavily on the grants to cover the running costs of everything, it’s just become too much to keep the café open.”
Open Kitchen partnered with social housing provider Southway to open a community-focused hub in Old Moat, off Princess Road with a focus on older people, including people with mobility issues and cognitive impairments.
“It’s a massive shame, all the residents come to meet here and the whole point of this café was the community aspect, to get residents out and socialising again, especially after Covid-19,” Thompson said.
“The initiative was to help prevent residents trekking to Withington while providing affordable prices that won’t break their budget.”
The café open seven days a week offers home-cooked food, but acted as a local shop by stocking essential products at reasonable prices, in line with Open Kitchen’s sustainability and zero waste principles.
The space isn’t only used for food and resources, several activities are provided to residents by Thompson and other members of staff, to help keep local residents meeting-up in the community.
Thompson said: “Places like this are so important now, little cafés like this would be everywhere once, but with Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis, everyone’s started to focus on the costs and lost the interpersonal relationships with regulars.
“Having places like this, that go back to the core root of communities and supporting everyone, the social atmosphere and aspects is something that really is important.”
From nutritional classes to bingo, yoga, and quiz nights and to providing a beautician/hairdresser offering weekly treatments, residents fear they will miss out on many social aspects of this community space as well as the convenience of local shopping.
Angela Barron and six other local residents, use the space to make and sell cards, having raised almost £200 for The Christie Charity. With the community space now only open on Tuesday mornings, Angela says there will be nowhere to continue selling the cards and raising money.
She said: “It’s awful, we are just going to be isolated. There’s a bus that stops at 2.15pm, and you are rushing to get back, without that, we are completely cut off.
“There are no shops locally, and most of us can’t walk to Withington. We all feel we’re going to be isolated once this place shuts on Sunday (October 30).”
With Open Kitchen handing back the site to Southway Housing Association, residents are concerned about the future of the hub, and how the site will get used by resident groups.
Angela said: “We have had no letter directly from Southway Housing explaining everything, or an in-person conversation on what is happening with the café. We are all quite frustrated about the lack of communication from Southway.”
Southway Housing says they will be in touch with residents to discuss the future once Open Kitchen has closed, as they can't yet confirm the future use of the café building.
Though the Treatment Room will remain open to provide services for local residents, over-30 regulars visit Minehead Café to socialise and break up what otherwise could be a very long and lonely day.
There are hopes amongst staff and customers that another firm will take over and follow Open Kitchen in familiar footsteps. Thompson said: “Just because it didn’t work for us as a business, doesn’t deflect that it’s such an important space for everyone to come in for the community.
“I’m hoping that someone will jump at the chance to come in and take this on, keep building on what we’re doing, and make this a really great community hub for everyone.”
A spokesperson for Southway Housing said: "Open Kitchen have worked hard, with our support, to try to make the café a success. It opened during challenging times as we lived with Covid and has then more recently faced increasing fuel and food costs and lower than expected customer numbers. All of this has meant they have had to close.
"This has happened quickly – two weeks ago – and so we are not yet in a position to confirm the future use of the café building. The Treatment Room is still open.
"We have coordinated with Open Kitchen in a statement announcing the closure, informed the groups who use the space about interim use as far as possible, and updated local councillors, who wrote directly to residents. We appreciate and will take on board the feedback that some residents also wanted to receive a letter directly from Southway. We will be in touch with them to discuss the future once Open Kitchen have closed.
"We will soon be consulting with local people to re-assess the level of demand for a café. We are employing a specialist to work with us over the next two months to look at longer term options including alternative providers and other ways to help make a café in this location sustainable.
"As a local community organisation and landlord, Southway is committed to making sure there are good local facilities for people in Old Moat, and that our Age Friendly neighbourhood work continues to help build social connections and a good quality of life for people. The café is part of this bigger picture, and we will do all that we can to make sure it reopens in some form.
"We would like to thank Open Kitchen for the service they have provided since September 2021. They have done a great job that was appreciated by local people including good quality food and drink and a small local pantry offer for residents.
"We are really sad that they have had to withdraw at this time but understand that the economic environment is unfavourable for providers and that local residents will have less money to spend as the cost-of-living crisis takes hold."
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