A PUB and restaurant owner is winning plaudits for his open and honest take on the coronavirus crisis and the impact it is having on his businesses.

Pubs, restaurants and cafés shut dramatically in a bid to stem the tide of the Covid-19 pandemic and indications are they will be last businesses to re-open when lockdown is lifted.

Piers Baker, who runs the award-winning Sun Inn in Dedham and Church Street Tavern in Colchester, has been writing to customers in a newsletter, titled of Diary of an (Empty) Pub Landlord.

In the diary entries, Mr Baker has laid bare the gravity of the challenges facing his businesses, and thousands of others across the UK.

Although times are hard, Mr Baker says he isn’t giving up just yet and he has launched a new delivery service from the pub to find alternative revenue streams.

He said: “After almost 18 years at the Sun Inn and six years at Church Street Tavern, I’ve worked too hard and we have too many wonderful people involved in both our sites - you, our teams, our suppliers.

“We’ve had too much support from you, our team, our suppliers not to be given the opportunity to repay this and some.

“We have a brand new online shop for you to buy wine, beer, cider and spirits.

“We will be adding more products over the coming weeks and we will be replenishing stocks as they run out.”

Since nationwide lockdown measures came into force, Mr Baker has been forced to close both his businesses and furlough his staff.

Despite the welcome Government support, finances are still tight.

He said: “Between my two sites, we lost so much income in sales.

“Vital funds needed to pay suppliers from February and March, rent, VAT, national insurance contributions.

“We don’t qualify for any grants being above the rateable value.

“We have applied for the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan but the pile of potential debt makes things look tricky, especially on the back of paying down the cost of our 2018 refurbishment.”

Mr Baker is calling for supporters to get behind the #NationalTimeOut campaign, calling for hospitality firms to have debts incurred by their closure added to the end of their lease.

He said: “(Harwich and North Essex MP) Sir Bernard Jenkin has been extremely supportive, putting pressure on our non-communicative landlord, who until Monday hadn’t given us any indication of what they were thinking.”

Here at the Gazette we’re calling on our readers to get behind businesses like Mr Baker’s to help them pull through this crisis.

We’re using our Backing Essex Business campaign to highlight the incredible work our small businesses are doing through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Use the hashtag #BackingEssexBusiness to shout out a business, or tell us how your business is adapting to the crisis by emailing gazette.newsdesk@newsquest.co.uk.