Community spirit gets Dawley restaurateur through theft

Jelly Tench said the community reaction had been fantastic

The owner of a restaurant which was burgled a week ago says community spirit has been their "last heartbeat" in helping them recover and keep going.

Restaurant 1840 in Dawley, Shropshire, had food, alcohol and even the milk stolen on 29 November.

Owner Jelly Tench managed to get back up and running days later and thanked locals for the "fantastic" reaction.

Former employees have offered to work shifts while regular customers have rushed to book in and eat, she said.

She arrived at the restaurant to find it had been burgled

"The reaction has been absolutely fantastic," she added.

"Some of our regulars particularly, I mean they called as soon as it happened.

"A lot of them are booked in for this week so we're looking forward to welcoming them all back.

"We weren't comfortable in opening the doors for people to come and help but we couldn't have thanked them any more."

Ms Tench went to the restaurant, in a former Methodist church, on the day of the break-in and saw windows were smashed, food strewn across the floor and the till was damaged.

Windows were smashed in the break-in but antique books were left behind

If the burglary had happened a couple of months ago, she said they would have been forced to close for longer but were lucky, in one respect, as it happened at a busier time of year with more bookings.

"We had enough to be able to cover it, open back up and carry on running, but that is pure luck to the time it was," she said.

Ms Tench said she ran the restaurant on her own for two years before her mother started helping her and they do not always manage to take a wage from the business.

The pair had already received many messages on social media offering help and support to clean or redecorate which she said was very much appreciated.

"That community spirit, that's been our last heartbeat, getting us through," she added.