We take you back just over three weeks ago, The Eccleston Arms was a Restaurant, Bar & Hotel offering the highest standard of freshly made delicious meals with the moto “The simple things done beautifully.” Then, without notice we had to close this service due to Government ruling as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Watching morning television, Andrew was heartbroken seeing a nurse who, after working a long shift, was in tears as she was unable to buy the basic essentials to feed her family due to others panic buying. Following discussions with The Steve Prescott Foundation, Andrew Mikhail realised that he had access to food suppliers with excess stock as they do not supply supermarkets. He made the decision to turn two of his venues, The Eccleston Arms & The Bold Hotel into supermarkets stocking these much needed essentials avaiable to NHS, Key workers and the elderly and most vulnerable of the borough 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The intention, not to make a profit, but to offer a service to the community that have supported us over the last 5 years. Unfortunately, we are having to address this due to a very small handful of people having spread some negativity regarding the pricing of some products. Let us explain, the products we have in stock are Grade A restaurant quality products, not readily available in high street supermarkets and are superior in quality to ‘own brand’ high volume produced products. We did request ‘value’ pasta from our stockist, but as you can imagine they had very limited stock, hence why we have been purchasing the Premium product. We also do not have the buying power of The Big Four supermarkets do.

Our products, with only an average mark-up of 15%, have not been priced to make a profit, only to cover costs, however if there are ANY profits these will be donated to The Steve Prescott Foundation.

Stressing the importance of trying to get people to #StaySafeStayHome we must thank Blackbrook Rugby Club who have volunteered and worked tirelessly to support this service and allowed us to open up our home delivery to those most vulnerable in the community and cannot leave the house nor are able to access supermarket delivery due to delivery slots being booked up a month in advance.

We are now able to take orders and deliver essential items within the borough within an hour, this service is free of charge, and comes with a smile, a song or even a joke or two from Steve Prescott Foundation ambassador Johnny Vegas. We have had tears of joy and relief from people who were in desperate need of the basic necessities, this is why we keep going.

Working together as a team we have been able to:

• Deliver approximately 800-1000 supplies
• Pass on a great amount of produce donations to The HOPE Centre
• Provide countless free food whilst awaiting the Council Help Line to set up.
• Collect emergency food vouchers for people using the food bank.
• Collected Medicines and prescriptions for those in need.
• In the next 24 hours we will be collecting 300 Easter eggs from supporters and distributing to NHS and liaising with the Council to deliver to young parents whose children wouldn’t be able to receive an Easter egg.

All of this has been done free of charge by The Blackbrook Team, The Steve Prescott Foundation and The Eccleston Arms Team who are all putting their own health on the line for the good of others, so they can #StaySafeStayHome.

Call 01744 881881 to make your order