Business / Change at northerly tearoom after challenging year
The impact of repeated ferry disruption and staffing challenges are among factors behind the decision from Victoria’s Vintage Tea Rooms to change how it operates
FERRY disruption, staffing difficulties and rising costs are behind major changes at a tearoom at the very top of Shetland.
Instead of the usual cafe set-up, Victoria’s Vintage Tea Rooms in Haroldswick plans to run an indoor “cake fridge” style operation inside the building, where people can enjoy self-serve sweet treats, tea and coffee.
With the gift shop remaining open, the building will still be manned – but there will be no waiting staff.
Owner Victoria Mouat also said the team plans to operate a trailer in the car park of the Hermaness National Nature Reserve, offering tea, coffee and cake to visitors of the northerly outpost.
It comes off the back of a tough year, which Mouat said was one of the worst they have had in terms of visitor numbers.
This coincided with regular disruption to the ferries running to Yell and Unst, with a lack of staffing cover a key issue.
Like many other hospitality businesses, the tearoom has also found it difficult to find staff too.
“Last year was probably one of the worst years we’ve had in terms of visitors, especially with the ferry disruptions – they really knackered us,” Mouat told Shetland News.
“One of our days was 80 per cent down from the previous year, and that was through June.
“Although the season is getting longer for tourists on Shetland, the busy season isn’t – so we’re still looking at mid-May to end of July for a guaranteed busy season, and if that’s impacted, that makes a massive impact on everything over the whole year.”
Add in other factors like increasing costs and national insurance rises, and the family contemplated saying “goodbye” and selling up.
However, the decision to change the way the tearoom operates and reduce the financial risk was seen as a way it could continue but with more of an emphasis on the family – Victoria, husband Richard and their children – running it.
Mouat said the tearoom will still be taking tour groups and with some rearranging of the space, there will be capacity for 45 folk.
For groups with more people than that then Mouat will still make use of the Baltasound Hall, which they have done in the past, offering a buffet-style set-up for visitors.
When there are no tour groups, the tearoom space will be used as a self-serve, cake fridge type venture, with new bakes added every day.
“Hopefully that will still give visitors somewhere to come and get somewhere to eat,” Mouat said.
“If it’s not the best of weather they could come in and sit and enjoy the view in the warmth of the tearooms. It does just mean that we’re not having to have waiting staff, kitchen staff, everything like that.”
Further north at Hermaness, a haven for wildlife enthusiasts and walkers, the plan is to open a catering trailer by the spring – with one of Mouat’s daughters already lined up to work there before she heads off to university later in the year.
“It’s a moveable trailer so we can move it around with the direction of the weather and the wind,” Mouat added.
“We’ve already told the kids that there will be regular walks around Hermaness to make sure things are clean and tidy and no-one is leaving any coffee cups anywhere.”
A longer-term aim is to install solar panels on the trailer, with the family keen to make things as “green as possible”.
Due to the elements the Hermaness “coffee hut” is likely to be a seasonal affair, but Mouat said things will be a case of trial and error.
Back to Haroldswick, and it has been ten years since the tearooms opened its doors in what was the former Northern Lights Bistro.
Mouat said it has been a good decade but one that has been a “definite learning curve”.
“Having a business, especially a business like the tearooms, in a rural are like Unst is very, very different to having a business anywhere else, I would say,” she added.
“You face the normal, everyday challenges that all hospitality businesses are facing.
“But also you face the other issues like ferries or having footflow, or even the weather.”
Regarding the ferries, Mouat said last year was “really bad”.
“I think part of it could have been due to bad publicity with the ferries, so it put people off coming up to the isles,” she said.
“But a lot of it was also people being stuck in queues for sometimes hours on end.”
She said the tearoom tried to stay open over the winter, where usually they would get some Shetland-based customers dropping in.
However the number of these types of visitors dropped by around 80 per cent.
“It was really bad, we didn’t see hardly anybody that we’d usually see, and I think that is down to the ferries,” Mouat said.
“I think there is a big fear factor of people coming up and not wanting to get stuck.”
She added that a key problem has tended to be when all bookings are suspended during periods of disruption, as it adds uncertainty over travel – especially for visitors on larger vehicles like buses.
“We’ve had tour groups that have had to even cancel, or change their days coming up, because they know that they’re not going to get onto the ferry, especially if it’s a bus and all bookings are suspended,” Mouat said.
“I think they need to find a way to not suspend all bookings so that people do have a chance to still be able to guarantee to get on and off the island even if there is disruption with the ferries.”
Mouat said she is “100 per cent” behind the idea of fixed links such as a tunnel as a replacement for the ferry, and she believes the community shares that view too.
“It’s got to the point that it just has to happen, really. Even in order for the North Isles just to survive, it has to happen.”
The tearoom, meanwhile, is open this weekend as visitor numbers to Shetland increase for Lerwick’s Up Helly Aa – in the usual style, with family due to work as the waiting staff.
The pop-up tearoom and gift shop is open on Saturday and Sunday (today) between 12pm and 5pm, serving soup, scones and cakes.
There is also a hope to continue hosting supper nights in the future, which took place prior to Christmas and saw hot dishes like pies, hotpots and soups served up.
Although things are set to change this year, Mouat added that there is flexibility to return the business back to the way it was – if things are on the up.
Something simmering in Unst is the SaxaVord spaceport, which hopes to begin hosting satellite launches later this year – which should bring extra footfall to Britain’s most northerly island, both from the workforce and also tourists.
“Doing it this way we can always reintroduce the tearooms again,” Mouat said.
“So that option is always there when things are in a better position and the situation has improved.”
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