Margate’s GB Pizza gets prepared to start feeding hungry customers from April

Lisa and her team are waiting to welcome back their customers (Image GB Pizza)

The phased lifting of covid restrictions will mean popular Great British Pizza on Margate seafront will be able to welcome back customers – but trade will be running on a tight margin while social distancing measures are in place.

Despite the hurdles GB Pizza boss Lisa Richards says she wants to get the doors open and is even launching a new service prior to the April 12 reopening.

Lisa is introducing a ‘finish at home’ pizza service so customers can grab their food after shopping or work and finish it off in their own oven .

GB Pizza will then open for takeaways and outdoor dining from April 12.

Lisa said: “We are being very cautious and will have a maximum of 16 seated outside. Come May 17 when we are allowed to open inside, even on a busy day we will only be able to operate at 60% of our normal revenue because of the social distancing measures, so it is going to be really tight.

“We also don’t know what the rules are going to be yet. Operating outside alone and takeaways is not really viable but we just want to get open, get our staff back and make sure the restaurant is covid safe.”

Lisa’s 12 staff have been on furlough but are due to return over the reopening dates and she hopes to increase employees during the summer.

But she says caution is still a top priority.

Lisa said: “We are not back to normal. We will be taking all the government advice and will be going slow and steady.”

The award-winning pizza restaurant has been operating since 2012 and was founded by Lisa and her partner Rachel Seed. Sadly, Rachel passed away in 2018 after losing her long battle against a brain tumour.

Lisa continues the business which has launched various community initiatives and is a regular in the Good Food Guide.

Takeaways and cook at home pizza services will be open from noon to 9pm from April 1.

Bookings for outdoor tables (from April 12) and inside bookings (available from May 17) can be made now by calling 01843 297700 Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm.

Find GB Pizza on facebook here

14 Comments

    • No, it is an article to give our local businesses run by local people some support ready for reopening

      • One presumes you’ll be doing an article for every local business then? Cant wait to see them all as they go up! 🙂

        • I’ve done a few, might even do one about myself as an independent business that needs community support and financial income in order to exist

  1. I think the media in general and (in this case) the IoTN in particular is doing us a grave disservice by flogging the idea that this or that venue will be opening up by a particular date.
    Boris has made it clear that steps along the route map will *only* be taken if Covid data supports it. If in early April infection and death rates are rising again, then some or all of these steps will be pushed down the line by weeks or months, leading to vast numbers of people being hugely disappointed.
    Meanwhile, we can all do our bit to facilitate the opening up of venues as hoped by sticking to the guidelines, and doing everything we can to stop the spread of the virus.

    • The alternative Andrew is that we lockdown for the rest of our life times. For ever and ever. Freedom of movement completely gone. Imprisoned in homes. Only online deliveries. Local economies dead. Children and young people’s futures ruined. Elderly dying in isolation. Suicides ever increasing. Communities of all kinds destroyed. Look that one in the eye. It’s a possibility if you succumb to the fear agenda and don’t look at the stats for a virus with a survival rate of over 99.6 per cent. Or listen to the medical/scientific experts worldwide who are censored from corporate mainstream media and fundamentally disagree with the lockdowns, treatments and experimental gene therapy.

  2. Good luck to them. Let’s support local businesses. We need an air of positivity now. It’s good for the immune system!

  3. An alternative to opening everything up on a particular date is to open up when various aspects of the pandemic fall below certain levels: things like infection rates, death rates, “R” number and so on. This is what the government is doing,
    though it hasn’t actually put any numbers on the tests.
    The survival rate is not 99.6% (nor 99.7% nor 99.3%, as you have falsely claimed on previous occasions.) The figure you’re quoting is for the whole population, whether they’ve had CV or not. Quite obviously, the survival rate of people who haven’t contracted CV is 100%. For those who have, the survival rate is somewhat less. Ask the family, friends and colleagues of the 126,000 who’ve died.
    I read a lot of stuff about CV from a variety of sources. But I apply a modicum of common sense. Just because a YouTube clip featuring a bloke in a white coat and bow tie sitting behind an impressive desk flanked by weighty tomes does not lend his thesis credibility.
    Results that have been peer reviewed and published in learned journals are to be trusted.
    Perhaps you can explain how you know of these alternative “medical/scientific experts worldwide” given that, according to you, they are censored?

  4. People have short memories. I still remember the article Ms Richards wrote describing Margate as “the dumping ground for the unloved, unemployable and uncontrollable” and referred to “grubby kids marauding the streets”, “racist cab drivers and the in-your-face drug use”. That is why I am reluctant to support this business.

    • I remember that. What put me off though was back when I was on Twitter someone attending a UKIP conference in Margate wanted recommendations for good local eateries, so I linked to GB Pizza – the owner responded by saying they didn’t need UKIP’s business! Now, I don’t support any political party, but a business that turns away custom because they disagree with the politics of a person deserves to fail, and I’ve boycotted the place ever since.

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