Café at Preston Docks remains short staffed as employees told to self-isolate

The café announced publicly on Sunday, July 18, that its seating area would be shut off to customers for the majority of this week and will be operating a limited take away menu.

'Many' members of staff were pinged by the NHS Track and Trace app and told to self-isolate due to coming in contact with positive people from outside the business.

And last Friday, July 16, one member of staff tested positive for Covid-19 when they were conducting their daily tests before work, but the business took an immediate response and closed.

Since following advice, the café has been given the go-ahead to safely reopen, but is doing so with fewer staff members and will be operating a takeaway-only service until Friday at the earliest.

A public post by Preston Marina said: "Due to continued Covid precautions the Beach Hut will continue to be closed for seated service from Monday to Thursday this week, including Thursday evening.

"The reason is, we have struggled over the last week with several members of our team having to take time off to self-isolate. Then on Friday morning, following our daily testing regime of all the team, prior to their coming into work, we had a positive Covid result.

"We took immediate action and closed the seating areas, we deep cleaned and took advice. We can now re-open but we have decided as an extra precaution we will limit our service and keep our team small to ensure everyone’s safety.

"Once we re-open, our team will be carrying on with the Covid precautions we have had in place, our screens will remain in situ and we will continue to wear our masks. We will continue with safe distances between our tables and we will have hand sanitisers available. We will be re-introducing ordering at the till points but our app will remain.

"We very much hope our customers will join in with our precautions and continue to socially distance whilst queuing and we would be grateful if masks are still worn when moving around the building.

"As long as our staffing levels allow us to provide the service, we all expect we will reopen this Friday."

Drinks, ice cream and a limited takeaway menu will still be available from the outside windows until 4.30pm each day.

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