How Sunderland businesses have survived lockdown as city centre prepares to reopen

With dozens of stores expected to reopen for the first time in three months on Monday, June 15, we paid a return visit as part of our #SupportLocal campaign to two shop owners who spoke to us in March about their fears for the future.

The coffee shop

A cake and coffee shop owner has thanked loyal customers for helping him to keep his promise that his family’s business would not close permanently.

Speaking inside his empty premises back in March, just days before the lockdown was confirmed, Ariel Niesporek, 38, said: “It has been my wife’s dream to open this shop and we will definitely reopen if we have to close.”

Ariel and wife Patrycja Niesporek, 39, had only opened their Pati Cake Patisserie shop, in Tunstall Road, on the edge of the city centre, around three months before the onset of the pandemic.

After enjoying a promising start, in which they were considering employing more staff, they closed down when lockdown began – “getting ingredients to make our cakes was suddenly a big problem” – before reopening for takeaway orders just over a month ago.

Signs and floor markings now direct customers along a one-way system with staff serving from behind protective screens.

The safety measures – with tables pushed together to act as a makeshift traffic island – mean the shop has had to reduce its seated area for anyone planning on enjoying a cuppa indoors.

Ariel, originally from Gdansk, in Poland, said: “At the moment we do not have the information for whether customers can sit indoors. Hopefully we will get more guidance soon.”

He is hopeful, however, that business will pick up soon after noticing a recent increase in the amount of traffic heading along Tunstall Road towards the usually busy Durham Road roundabout.

Ariel added: “You can see people driving past and noticing that we are open. We have been so excited to see our customers coming back and putting a smile back on their faces.”

The fast food shop

James Birch is in a perfect position to judge how busy Sunderland city centre is.

Pedestrianised Maritime Street, home to his Dip Shop business, is a popular short cut for shoppers heading to and from Blandford Street towards the central train station or bus stops in Holmeside.

James, 61, who opened his fast food shop four years ago having previously working as a cleaner for a bus company, can see signs of the city coming back to life after initially resembling “a ghost town” following the lockdown.

He added: “It was dead. There was only so many buses running because there was a Sunday service all the time and most of the shops were shut.

“Now I can see signs of it coming back to life over the last week or two.”

James, who feared in March that he might have to close by May if trade continued to drop, has remained open six days a week during the lockdown and has thanked customers for remaining loyal to the business over the last three months as it continues “to tick over”.

He said: “At one stage it dropped from 100 customers a day down to as low as 40. Now it is back up to 70 and hopefully more will return next week.”

If our brief conversation is anything to go by then James’s hopes may well come true as we have to break off twice so that he can help serve more customers.

Positive food for thought ahead of the city centre’s widespread reopening on June 15.

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