City centre businesses beat the lockdown with collections and deliveries

Tom Hewitt with the takeaway and delivery menus at Furley & Co.

FROM burgers and beer to coffee and cocktails, Hull city centre’s hard hit food and drink businesses are stepping up their efforts to keep customers fed and watered under lockdown.

Furley & Co unveiled their new collection service on the doorstep of their bar in Princes Dock Street, Hull, last weekend and are now looking forward to a busy Bank Holiday.

The Furleys team collected orders by phone and WhatsApp for dishes including four different beef burgers, four different chicken burgers and the veggie option of a Halloumi and honey burger. Also available are wraps, salads and loaded fries and nachos, and the full menu can be viewed on Facebook.

Drinks options include bag-in-a-box cask beers and ciders as well as bottles and cans, and the bar is planning a long weekend for the Bank Holiday with opening from midday until 6pm Friday until Monday.

Howard Hewitt, owner of Furley & Co, said: “The menus are in the windows, we confirm the orders at the front door, I’m in the kitchen cooking and the bags of lovely food are placed on a table outside for people to pick up and take home.

“We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure we are observing social distancing every step of the way and the feedback is that people are as impressed with the safety-first approach as they are with the food and drink. We expect to be very busy over the Bank Holiday weekend.”

Shoot the Bull will launch deliveries and click and collect this weekend at the Old House in Scale Lane and plan to continue every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Orders must be placed before midday via the app or website at www.mylocaldelivers.com for collection between midday and 4pm the following day, with delivery available as far as Brough, South Cave and Market Weighton. The website also has details of the menu, which will be enhanced soon with the addition of an afternoon tea option.

Hotham’s Distillery in Hepworth’s Arcade, Hull, have added to their online gin sales with a range of guest drinks from Coleman’s Cider Co of Driffield. Also, with the award-winning gin school closed because of the lockdown the company is providing some tuition online with a selection of summer cocktails on its Hull Gin School and Leeds Gin School Facebook pages.

Emma Kinton, co-founder of Hotham’s, said: “We’ve been open for online gin sales throughout and we’ve also been spending some time testing our new cocktail ideas using the sort of ingredients that people can readily find around their kitchens at home.

“Nothing too fancy, just a variety of citrus fruits and a quick and easy lesson on how to make a simple citrus syrup which can form the basis for all sorts of cocktails!”

Two Gingers Coffee in Paragon Arcade is planning to reopen for deliveries from Friday and is also exploring the possibility of launching a collection service. New products include coffee from Oxfordshire, Berlin and Copenhagen, natural wines and a coffee brewer which will enable people to make their own at home with ingredients from the shop.

Also working towards a reopening is Two Gingers’s neighbour in Paragon Arcade Homestead Store, where founder Charlie Broomfield has been busy with online sales of homewares, magazines, vegan beauty products and other items.

He said: “People have been buying all sorts of things because they realise that not everyone with a special occasion during lockdown just wants food and drink! We’re doing free delivery on orders over £20 and we’re working on an idea for people to pick up their orders as well.”

Kathryn Shillito, HullBID Executive Director, said: “Coronavirus has had a huge impact on city centre businesses but the benefit of having such a strong independent sector is that they can respond quickly to customer demand and also lead the way.

“We know there are other businesses throughout the city centre which are taking an innovative approach to how they work, enabling them to keep things ticking over and to maintain a strong relationship with their customers by providing a safe and much needed serviced.”