Just one year after reopening following a devastating fire, one of Wales' best pubs 'Y Ffarmers' near Aberystwyth have been forced to close again.
In January 2018, the pub in Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn near Aberystwyth was destroyed by a devastating fire. Now, just a week short of their one-year anniversary of the grand reopening it's doors are closed again due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, one of the pubs owners Caitlin Morse says that going through the previous closure has given her the "strength" to know that it will re-open again one day.
Y Ffarmers, which has featured in the Michelin Guide, Good Pub Guide and AA Restaurant and Pub Guide as well as WalesOnline's Best Pubs in Wales , is co-owned by Caitlin business partner, Lewis Johnstone.
For 39-year-old Caitlin, after weeks of dwindling custom the eventual enforced closure by the UK government came as a relief.
"At the end of February we noticed things quietening down a bit as people chose to stay in," said Caitlin.
"I think in the end we were quite glad we were forced to close, at least then we knew where we stood.
"We've furloughed all our staff so now it's just me and my business partner. It was quite a shock at first to go from having around 16 staff to overnight just the two of us."
While the pub doors are closed, the pair are trying to maintain the business with as well as they can.
"We're doing a takeaway menu now every Friday, Saturday and Sunday lunches and yeah there's takeaway pints and wines and things too.
"As well as it being just us two we'd never done any sort of takeaway thing before.
"We just thought that people were so devastated when the pub closed before that if there's anything we can do this time to keep it open we will.
"It's been really popular. We've staggered collection times and done what we can to make sure there isn't groups of people."
While this enforced closure has been a struggle for the business partners, Caitlin says the staff have been amazing. While the business is managing to stay open in some form now, Caitlin says the future is uncertain.
"Everyone has just been absolutely amazing, we have the best staff. They stuck with us through the fire and they're right with us with this too.
"It was a bit worrying, we'd only just got back on our feet and then we're struck down again with this. I suppose this time at least everybody is in the same boat," she said.
"We're guessing this will go on for several months and even then we don't really know what the longer term implications will be. We have a big tourism industry down here - will people even have money to go on holiday? Or will it actually work out with more people coming to holiday in the UK?"
Unlike a lot of businesses facing uncertain times, having gone through an enforced closure before, Caitlin is positive that things will return to normal.
"I learned from losing it before that it will come back. It feels like the end of the world for a lot of people at the moment but after going through it before it gives you some sort of strength to say it will be okay."
