A cafe owner has been flooded with messages of goodwill after making a heartfelt plea on Facebook for people to support her business or she fears she will have to close.
Karen Sangster runs the Cloudberry Cafe in Marple and says business has halved since lockdown eased - as she fears people are still worried about socialising amid the coronavirus pandemic.
She has begged customers to come out and support the cafe - even if just to buy cups of coffee with friends - or she fears she will soon have to close for good.
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Posting on the Cloudberry Cafe Facebook page, Karen wrote her heartfelt plea, writing she felt it "embarrassing to admit".
She wrote: "My heart is incredibly heavy whilst I write this, but I have always strived for honesty on social media so here we go.
"People keep asking me how business is and I have to be honest; it's not good. In fact it's pretty bad. We are probably a couple of months from having to close for good.
"We've even had the estate agents out today to value the building, this is not hyperbole. Our customer base has halved since coming out of lockdown and that is just not sustainable for us.
"This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I would rather post this now than after we've had to close the doors for good and people tell me that they wish they had known.
"We need your help more than we ever have, or Cloudberry will be no more.
"Every coffee you buy, every card, every slice of cake helps me and the staff keep going and right now we need this support. Please share this message for me to anyone who may also want to help out.
"I don't really know what else to say without grovelling."
She added: "Going from running a successful and sustainable business to making a monthly loss is incredibly humbling. It's a good job I have very little shame, though I will go and cringe under a couch cushion after I've written this."
Karen, 39, has told the MEN that since the post she has been humbled by the hundreds of message vowing to support her cafe.
And on Wednesday, when she opened her doors for the first time since publishing the Facebook post, she had one of her busiest days of recent weeks.
Many of those commenting on Facebook praised her for being brave enough to write honestly about her situation.
One said: "Wow what a strong woman you are to admit it, this pandemic has a lot to answer for. Hope things brighten up for you."
Another added: "This isn’t embarrassing at all! No one can help the effects Covid is having on all of our businesses, there’s no shame in any of this at all!"
Karen says she hopes that by being "open and honest" people will realise the gravity of the situation - and believes there are many, many other hospitality businesses in the same predicament who may feel too embarrassed to say the same thing.
She told the MEN: "We had to closed for six months during lockdown and doing takeaways didn’t work out for us, and since reopening things have been incredibly quiet.
"I still have regulars but a lot of people just don't seem to be coming back out like they did.
"Everyone is saying how much quieter everywhere is, particularly for those with not a lot of outdoor space.
"But also a lot of people are not being public about how busy or quiet they are. A lot of places are quiet, someone said to me 'I’m not brave enough to put that on Facebook'.
"I'm in a fortunate position that my parents own this building outright so I don't have the huge rent bills some face, but it's still a struggle and so I can only imagine how difficult it is for those people paying rent on top as well. I know I'm not alone in this situation by any means."
Karen has been running her cafe business for seven years - baking all her own cakes and serving up freshly-prepared breakfast, lunch, teas, coffees and snacks at the Stockport Road premises.
She decided to take the plunge as a cafe owner after leaving her previous job as a PA.
She said: "We just need people to come out and support us, just dropping in for a coffee with friends, maybe people aren’t feeling secure about sitting inside but we’ve made sure we are Covid secure here."
Karen is currently opening the Cloudberry Cafe Wednesdays - Sundays, 10am to 3pm.
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