Hello everyone! It’s been a little while, read on to discover what we’ve been up over these crazy past 18 months and what the future holds for your favourite cosy festival cafe….We were of course gutted that the recent June 21st ‘un-locking’ date didn’t pan out as originally planned – it meant we missed out for a second year in a row on the chance to make our debut as the 24 hour chill-out cafe in the Mind, Body, Soul healing area at the amazing Noisily festival! Very sad for everyone involved after so much hard work and effort had gone into making the event happen this year. The festival HQ have promised a spectacular return in 2022 and we can’t wait to be a part of it. In the meantime our co-director Pat decided to make the most of another June with no events on and headed for a little road-trip up north and see the wonderful sights of Scotland during the summer solstice instead…not too shabby a replacement!
In promising news for everyone in our industry though, as of the Government’s latest announcement it does tentatively look like everything else we have lined up for 2021 just might go ahead. We really can’t wait to set up our marquee, all of our decor and cosy seating and of course our outdoor kitchen, and serve tasty food and drink in a field to friendly, happy people for long weekends at at time again! Nearly everyone who works in festivals and outdoor events, not to mention a so many other industries and walks of life too, has been severely affected by the pandemic and subsequent restrictions on social and business activity. We’ve all been forced to turn to other, often new, modes of employment and sources of income. For OIABM, when the pandemic first hit it was a very stressful time! Plans were constantly changing, we faced a very real worry of bankruptcy and all of the 2020 festivals, events and weddings we had booked in slowly cancelled one by one…
As it happened, we were eligible for some Government support which has just about helped to keep us afloat – and in the meantime all of our team have found other work. This has ranged from a frontline role at Bristol UWE and warehouse / delivery work for an organic fruit & veg wholesaler, to producing hand-painted signs and murals around the UK and scenic painting for a hit BBC TV series! We’ve also kept as productive and busy as we can with OIABM bits and bobs on the side – specifically a lot of those little jobs we never get round to doing during the hectic festival seasons of years past. Amongst other things we’ve added several delicious new items to our food menu which we’re very excited about, we’ve custom designed and organised our own storage space (we love labelling boxes), we’ve hand-made and painted lots of new signage and furniture (hold tight for our outdoor benches!) and also taken on a personal van conversion job which we’ll be making full use of to help transport our stuff from festival to festival.
Due to the seasonal nature of OIABM, having no work at all in Summer 2020 was of course a massive blow to the momentum we’ve been building up over the past 5/6 years…and as the first lockdown subsided we felt compelled to at least have a go at diversifying our business model and trying something new. This was not only to keep our followers engaged and remain in the public consciousness a little bit until festivals returned, but also to see what else we’re capable of and develop some new skills and experience. After a lot of discussion and careful planning, we launched ‘Dishes To Your Door’, which was a lovely way to keep the cafe active and a successful promo exercise! The scheme ran twice, for 6 weeks from October 2020 and then for another 4 weeks in January 2021 to coincide with Veganuary. It was modelled as a subscription based meal delivery service in and around Bristol, where subscribers signed up for 2 or 4 weeks at a time. Every week they got to chose one of two 100% plant-based, unique recipes (main, grain and side) which was then delivered to their doorsteps via push-bike at their chosen time. One dish was always a home comfort classic, the other was inspired by cuisine from around the world. With a focus on seasonal produce and organic ingredients, feedback from everyone was very positive throughout. In particular it was heartwarming to see the smile on our friend’s faces as they experienced a fresh from the oven, piping hot vegan pie delivered to their doors right on dinner time in the deepest depths of winter and the January lockdown…We actually developed so many delicious recipes for Dishes To Your Door that we followed up by publishing a 2021 Seasonal Recipe Calendar!
The other major novel OIABM experience since our last festival (which was way back in September 2019 now!) took place on the third Friday of the month in August, September and October of 2020 – and was due to continue but alas the never-ending Lockdown MK.2 arrived. We hosted an intimate pop-up restaurant evening at the lovely Zion Community Cafe / Event Space over in Bishopsworth on the outskirts of Bristol. The team there are fantastic and it’s a lovely converted old Methodist chapel with a welcoming, community focused ethos. Each event showcased a different menu and theme, number one was Indian-themed, number two we went full on Aztec and for the third and final the menu was heavily influenced by Caribbean cuisine. It was 100% plant-based / vegan again, and a great new experience for us – all three ended up sold out. Also we have to say, after all these years pop-up catering in fields, it certainly was nice to be catering from a fully-kitted indoor kitchen.
It’s been relatively quiet during the rest of the first half of 2021 as we’ve just had to wait and see what happens with everything on the restrictions front, but we’re feeling positive about the future. We’ve survived, we’ve got our fingers crossed for a semblance of a festival season in the coming months and we’re certainly looking forward to bouncing back in 2022 better than ever!
