Normality Returns: Fortnum & Mason Is Open Again!
Good news! The definition of ‘essential’ has been broadened to include chocolate fondant truffles and hand reared venison! We knew it all along.
As the super smart set drift back to SWs 1 and 3 it looks increasingly like the Motcomb Street Waitrose simply isn’t going to cut it. Which is why there were Belgrave Square Bentleys beeping their horns and champagne corks popping across the Cadogan Estate this weekend as Fortnum & Mason’s food hall opens again for the first time since lockdown was imposed.
The announcement comes as other stores across London start to tentatively open, Selfridges has been doing a roaring trade in yellow carrier bags for three weeks now, and with strict social distancing the ground and basement floors of Fortnum’s will begin to ply their trade once again.
In a statement entitled ‘We’re all in this together’, arguably a surprising sentiment from a shop that sells froie gras and £14.95 jars of marmalade, shop bosses insisted that the health and wellbeing of shoppers and staff is paramount and the store will open with plenty of reassuring measures to ensure this.
Taking the Fortnum’s iconic red tailcoats off their hangers for the first time in months, staff will be implementing a one-way system on the stairs, putting in place social distancing protocols throughout the store and erecting safety screens at the tills. Plus there’ll be a lorra lorra hand sanitiser on, um, hand to ensure safe, if dried out, skin as you finger the tins of Royal Blend.
Anyone shopping for less than essential items; a Royal Doulton crockery set or a Mont Blanc fountain pen; will have to wait for a later wave of unlockdowning. Meantime Fortnum’s will operate on reduced hours, between 11am and 7pm on weekdays and Monday – Saturday and 12 noon-6pm on Sundays.
As the world starts to resemble whatever we hazily remember as ‘normal’, the reopening of Fortum & Mason, an institution and icon, is a beacon of hope and a milestone. It’s also an opportunity to stock up on some of the best scotch eggs in town. We’re on our way…
