It’s Wednesday evening – 3 days after the PM announced that bars and pubs would be forced to close indefinitely. 3 days after the realisation that we would not be able to bring all our staff through this epic clusterf%^k and out the other side. 3 days after our world ended.

But it’s not about us, is it? It’s about the community, the city, the country and the whole damn world. It’s about flattening that terrifying curve. It’s about doing our bit to save humanity. Who knew such a responsibility would ever fall on our shoulders?

We are luckier than some. While it’s true that our pub has closed it’s doors, we still have a shop, that is thus far still considered an “essential service” (God help us all if they take away our ability to decompress with a drink at the end of the day). That means we will be able to save some jobs. But it also means we’ve had to step up our measures to keep our staff and customers protected. 

Here’s the skinny on the new procedures: 

• Hand sanitiser is available at the entrance to the shop, and all customers will be asked to use it. 
• All fridge doors will be wiped down with disinfectant regularly.
• Staff will use hand sanitiser after every transaction.
• We will accept EFTPOS only in order to limit person-to-person contact. 
• Staff will disinfect the EFTPOS terminal after every transaction that involves punching in a PIN (as opposed to simply tap and go)
• We won’t be able to give you our usual, personalised service, but will happily point you in the right direction from a safe distance. 
• Any staff member who feels even the beginning of an IDEA of a cold or flu-like symptoms will stay home. 
• In the event the shop gets busy, we will ask some customers to wait outside (keeping the 2m distance from other customers) until there is room to do the same inside. 

We hope you are all keeping safe out there, and we SINCERELY hope you are all washing your hands and practicing safe social distancing. 

We also hope that you continue to choose to shop local, and keep local jobs going through this inevitable recession. 

We’re facing a tough year ahead. But we are all in this together.