“I ended 2019 by making a promise to myself, that 2020 was going to be a record year for us. The irony is not lost on me,” Nathan Brimmer, co-owner of The Pub and the Grokk Cafe in Valletta told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

2020 was a tough year for businesses in Malta, more so for bar and café owners. 2021 is shaping up to be just as challenging.

Nathan took over The Pub in 2014, after having been a regular for many years. A year-and-a-half ago, he and his co-owner opened up a second business, a café down the road called ‘Grokk’.

2020 was shaping up to be a good year, with the businesses hitting their targets in January and February. “Summer was looking promising for us. In the first week of March we were given an award by Farsons, for having the number one draft Cisk sales in the Central region. I never got to hang that plaque up. A week later we were shut down due to the first lockdown.”

Since Covid-19 spread across the country, restrictions have been implemented by the government to minimise the spread and protect the vulnerable. Businesses have, of course, been affected – bars most of all. While bar owners understand the need for these measures, they have still been heavily impacted by them.

“We genuinely expected this whole situation to last six months when Covid-19 first arrived, or at least, that was our hope. We held a meeting with our staff before St Patrick's day last year, telling them that we would be closed for around four months and that we would support them as much as we can. In total, we had around 10 employees (which includes full-timers and part-timers for both the pub and the cafe).”

“The lockdown was lifted around June, which is when we reopened. To be honest, we lost more money reopening than if we had remained closed due to all the procedures that were in place, and with people rightly taking the extra precautions. But the fact that we opened meant that our costs remained the same as we paid the same wages, had the same water and electricity bills, but sales had dropped by around 80%.”

“Once we reopened, I had to start cutting down hours, so the cafe was only opening in the evening, as there was no day-time trade. Valletta was a ghost town. I had to cut wages and try to find new work for my staff.” The wage supplement helped, but wasn’t enough, he explained.

“The problem was that, when they then announced another shutdown for bars at the end of October, they only gave us three days' notice. This was an issue due to deliveries we received, meaning that we had stocked up, but weren’t going to have time to sell. We've been shut down since by government requirements, as The Pub doesn't have a restaurant licence.”

He explained that every month he has had to give away, throw away, or try to consume high levels of stock. “In the first lockdown I had literally emptied all my fridges from the cafe and gave the food to the staff.”

“In the last days prior to the more recent lockdown, I just gave away all the draft beer we had as, once you tap a keg, its only good for a certain number of days and I don't like to waste. We ended up giving away around 500 pints of free beer to people walking by. It was either that or throw it away.”

“Just a few days ago I noticed five kegs at the pub which are about to go off, that's around 250 pints of Guinness that I can't return and can't sell. There's a limit to how much we can consume,” he quipped.

Asked about the cafe, he said that come October, the cafe was going to remain open, but they weren’t allowed to serve alcohol. “It’s a cafe during the day, but a wine bar at night, focusing on platters and wine. People want wine with their platters. I remember the last weekend the cafe was open we made €10 on Friday night and €12.15 on Saturday night. There was one night where four tables were taken, and they all stood up and left when I told them that I couldn't serve them wine. They all went to a restaurant close by that was able to serve them wine with their platters. I don't understand what the difference between my cafe and a restaurant was, other than that they have a restaurant licence. They were served the same food I was going to serve.”

“Later the authorities told me that I could not display alcohol on my shelves. They wanted me to cover up my fridges and remove all bottles from the shelves. My cafe was designed to have a lot of shelving with all the wine and spirits placed on them. When I asked them what I was supposed to do, they told me to cover them with a blanket or a board or remove them. They were due to come back the next day and said that if they saw a bottle on the shelves we would be fined and shut down. I would have had to gut the café, so at that point we decided to close as we weren’t making any money anyway.”

“At the time we had closed the café, it didn't even qualify for the benefits that clubs and bars did as technically it isn't a bar, but is registered as a snack bar.” Since the interview was held, a one-time €1,000 payment has been announced for eateries due to new restrictions introduced earlier this week.

“This has been one of the hardest years for me personally. To have something taken away from you not because of some mistake you make… Had I made a mistake somewhere along the way then I would have been able to find out where I went wrong and work to fix it.  But the fact that I've just been sat at home, helpless at this point, takes its toll. My daughter was born in August 2019, and so I've been able to spend a lot of time with her, which is the positive side of this situation and I loved that, being present for many firsts I would have probably missed out on otherwise.”

Nathan and his co-owner have invested tens of thousands into the businesses and must reopen when they are allowed to. “These two establishments are our livelihood. We're out of cash, we are literally running on minimal capital. Any money we are receiving is going into the businesses to ensure that they stay alive and for the remaining staff members to get paid.”