A café in Belfast city centre has thanked customers for their support as they prepare to close after 29 years in business.
Lunches to Go has been on Church Lane for the past 14 years, and operated from the site currently occupied by Bert's Jazz Bar for the 15 years before that.
They adapted over the years from making pies and dinners, to fry-ups, sandwiches and salads, but the café has always been a big hit with office workers in the city centre.
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However, after a difficult few years due to the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of office workers returning to the city, the team at Lunches to Go are preparing to close their doors for the last time this Friday.
The café's owner, Elaine, told Belfast Live her close-knit team have loved getting to know their regular customers over the years.
"We have a good rapport with a lot of our customers, and we would know most of them by name," she said.
"We've grown up with a lot of people that have come in over the years. People coming in as apprentices, or starting new jobs, and they'll come in and maybe their parents came in before them.
"My sister has worked with me for 25 years and another girl has been working here 22 years. We've always been a close-knit team, it's like a family business even though we're not all related. It's rare to find these days.
"We would find Environmental Health would come in to do an inspection and they can't believe all the same staff are here as the year before.
"It's just got harder now from Covid. We've lost a lot of office trade so the footfall hasn't been as good, and it's just been a stressful few years. It was a hard decision but it's just one of those things.
"The town does seem to be picking up again, but I just want time for a bit of a change now, and no stresses of running a business, I just want to work somewhere."
Adding that the reality of closing hasn't fully hit the team-of-five yet, Elaine said they have always been there to support each other, and will continue to do so even after closing.
She said: "It's emotional because we've all worked together for so long, and we've all gone through different things in our lives and families.
"We're always here for each other, we've had a really good wee team. We all still meet up and we have our Christmas dinners and nights out. And we will still meet up, but now it's time for everyone to get a bit of a rest, they've all worked very hard. They're all very loyal, honest, and good working staff to be honest."
Known for their fresh, homemade food, and delicious bacon rolls, the team always receive compliments that every item they make is bursting with flavour.
Over the years, Elaine has made a conscious decision to keep prices as low as possible to keep customers coming back.
"If somebody's working in an office beside you, you're wanting them in maybe four days out of the five," she added.
"So we keep things cheap, I mean our coffee is 60p and our tea is 50p. It keeps people coming in, and that's probably why a lot would come in a couple of times a day."
After being closed for ten weeks during the pandemic, Elaine said their customers were ready to support them again as they were getting back on their feet.
She said the support they've received has been invaluable.
"Thank you to everyone for the support over the years," Elaine continued.
"It's kept us here through Covid. We were closed for 10 weeks and we came back just a few hours a day, just to build things up, and we brought a third member of staff back and worked really hard to get things up and running.
"We put new signage out, we tried different new things on the menu just to try and get more people in, and all I can say is I just thank people for the support they've given us over the years.
"I had a man in yesterday morning from San Francisco, he was heading up to Game of Thrones and the Giant's Causeway and he came in for breakfast. Myself and the other girl in were chatting to him and he came back about an hour later to get more food to take with him for the day.
"He came back again this morning, he's only here for two days and he said Belfast is such a compact city but it has the kindest of hearts, and I thought that was just lovely - it really sums it up."
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