COVID-19 makes me even miss PEN-15
it’s an interesting time to be writing.
in the past week. i’ve had my car broken into. in hospital everyday for mum (not COVID-19 related ). our christchurch sales (tourist city) drop by 67% literally overnight (definitely COVID-19 related). building manukau pop up shop to launch tomorrow. barely slept in 3 days.
I do feel surprisingly calm through it all. tired but calm. honestly, i’m not toooo sure what to expect for the pop up shop. But I know it’ll be okay no matter what. it’s a tough time for everybody.
so even as much as I’d like for people to support us & even as much as I love Moustache, in the grand scheme of things I know there are way more important things right now. my heart goes out to everybody effected. the family of the deceased, the sick, the vulnerable, the people in hospitality, retail, aviation & tourism that are losing their businesses & livelihoods globally.
We all have our own problems & stress. We all have our own bills to pay. And in hard times like this, I don’t expect people to continue to come to us if they can’t. I understand. All anybody can do right now is do their best. And I’ll do my best too. And somehow, someway we’ll make it out the other side. Because there is nothing in the world that is more f*cking resilient than the human spirit.
my focus now is to retain as many Moustache jobs as possible. as you might know, Team Mo are like family to me. And I will fight for them as long as I may live. This means all projects planned for this year will be postponed. The most notable being the fitout for Moustache Manukau. We’ve got the commercial kitchen up & running so our online cookie shop is live so we can ship Moustache cookies nationwide to the doors of New Zealand homes (welcome to use code CHEER for 10% off — can’t resist the cheeky plug for www.moustache.co.nz 😂). And instead of spending money building the intended retail fit out, we have used recycled elements of past shops to form a Moustache Manukau POP UP SHOP ❤
As the situation is changing almost daily, I am launching the POP UP SHOP tomorrow Saturday 21st March for just over a week until Sunday 29th March from 11am-9pm everyday to trial the days & times & i guess to see how this all develops. I have no idea if people will even want to come out or what will happen but if for some reason if it does go okay, then we will use that information to form “permanent” opening hours (for as long as it is safe & feasible to do so).
As with most of our shops, the MANUKAU POP UP SHOP is being made by us, by hand. So what it might lack in big budgets, it certainly does not lack in love. If our world has learnt anything in this time, it’s that even when we feel we have nothing, we still have lots of love & kindness & empathy to give.
There’s something magical about recycling. For example, the MOUSTACHE sign outside the warehouse is actually the original sign from my very first shop on Wellesley St eight years ago!? I was the one who took it down on the last day when we closed. So it was really meaningful for me to be the one to hang it back up again outside Moustache Manukau knowing how much history & mana it holds. Wherever we go, this sign will stay with me for life & will look over us as a reminder of where we have come from 😌 we got through that, we can get through this.
anyway, lots to do for our soft opening of the pop up tomorrow so i gotta go.
X
