THE re-opening of a fish and chip take-away in Barnard Castle reeled in dozens of hungry residents last weekend.
After an absence of four weeks, Katie Barker fired up the fryers at her shop in Horse Market and was inundated with orders.
Ms Barker closed up when coronavirus restrictions were introduced and her staff were placed on furlough.
She used the time to come up with an online system which allocates a time slot and takes payment – and which also means she and her staff can serve customers via the ice-cream hatch, so no-one has to enter the shop.
“We wanted to be back,” said Ms Barker.
“We just missed serving everyone. To keep going, we needed to adapt to the situation we are in.
“We are getting lots of nice messages from customers.”
To begin with, the shop is operating three days a week with a reduced menu to assess demand. However, if the first weekend was anything to go by, hungry folk are missing their fish suppers.
“It worked really well. On the first night, everyone was on time and there were no queues,” she said.
Back behind the counter with Ms Barker were Leah Harker and Jessica Stout, who have been brought out of the furlough system.
“There are just the three of us for now, but if things go well, we will open more hours and everyone would be back,” said Ms Barker.
Ms Barker is one of a number of independent traders and other organisations across the dale offering support and advice to residents during the coronavirus lockdown.
