It’s no secret that parents haven’t had it easy over lockdown, whether that’s turning their home into a nursery to entertain their toddler, attempting to homeschool older children or motivating grumpy teens. Don’t even get us started on what working parents have been through… 

Running a business during a pandemic has had its challenges, as restaurants reinvented themselves as takeaways and salons hosted at-home beauty tutorials for loyal clients to get through those lockdown months.

Kate Enright’s buzzing Brixton coffee house-cum-co-working-space, CAYA – the name stands for ‘Come As You Are’ – is one business that’s all about bringing people together, with delicious local coffees and pay-as-you-go tables that allow you to get your work done in a relaxed environment. Not only did Enright have to re-think her business model to get through lockdown, she also had a baby on the way and gave birth at the height of the pandemic. 

From early March, Enright started ramping up hygiene and cleaning measures, implementing social distancing and swapping to disposable food and drink containers, launching a takeaway-only service by mid-March. The cafe officially closed its doors on March 22.

“It was an emotional day – not least because I was eight months pregnant, exhausted and hormonal,” says Enright. She used the time when the cafe was closed to apply for grants, ensure staff and suppliers were taken care of, access the job retention scheme and think about how and when CAYA could reopen its doors.

The CAYA community also reached out to help: workspace customer Claire Brooks, a graphic designer, made advertising vouchers for the cafe for free, so they could maintain an income while shut. 

Enright also started experimenting with technology to expedite reopening the space. She used Square to create an online click and collect store.

“That way, when we reopened as a takeaway we could allow people to order and pay safely in advance and pick up at the door. This was alongside a new in-store POS system set up for reopening! It was a crazy couple of months!! My daughter was born on April 27,” she says.

As a height-of-the-pandemic new mum, Enright had to go to hospital alone (she was joined by her partner for the final two hours of labour) and didn’t have any visitors for the first few weeks. Midwife visits were carried out in full PPE, and even though the cafe was shut, Enright was manically working: planning calls the week of Ellie’s birth, handling furlough payrolls and sorting grant applications while breastfeeding. 

“All fun and games for a small business owner in a pandemic. But in a lot of ways it was nice having just the three of us at home to get to know each other and bond during that time. Our little lock-down bubble!” she says.

CAYA reopened as a takeaway-only a month after Ellie’s birth, on May 26. Enright’s business partner, Nita Patel, went to the space to set things up with staff members, Itza and Jess. In mid-July, CAYA opened its indoor space – still only for takeaway – with sanitiser stations, a one-way system and perspex screens as added safety measures before opening for sit-in diners and as a workspace at the end of July. 

Track-and-trace measures, an online booking system where people pay in advance and book their seat and an online-only menu were also organised. Setting up these effective online systems have made it possible for Enright to take a step back and spend more time at home with baby Ellie.

“I have learned to pivot! Nothing is immovable. Nothing is too difficult to implement and implement quickly. And I don’t need to be on-site micromanaging every little thing for the business to work and thrive,” she says.

The click and collect and workplace booking systems have been so successful that Enright plans to keep them for the long haul, and the cafe will continue to sell the retail items it started stocking during lockdown. Enright continues to work mainly from home while looking after Ellie, and is hoping to get her into nursery for a couple of days a week by the end of this year, so she can spend some time on-site.

While the changes she’s gone through in the past several months are extraordinary, Enright thinks it’s all part and parcel of being an entrepreneur – baby or no baby.

“Running your own business with a new baby is going to be crazy whether there’s a pandemic or not, I think. If there was no pandemic I more than likely would have been making coffee when my water broke, so maybe it was a good thing for everyone that I had to stay at home.”