One of the first priorities was to offer calm, positive advice to employees and give assurances that the company would do all that it could to ensure their welfare.

“We then looked at how we could diversify. We began the process of evaluating what takeaway services we might be able to provide from both Jeremy’s and our next-door Café Elvira,” says Jeremy.

Led by head chef Jimmy Gray and Maria, a collaborative takeaway menu offering favourites from Jeremy’s and Café Elvira was created, featuring a range of popular, tasty and nutritious dishes that could be easily served at home, ingredients and allergen information and instructions on how to collect safely from the premises.

“The feedback to what we were doing, and what we were offering was and continues to be, truly heart-warming. We were also receiving messages from lovely customers sadly too far away from us to order, but encouraging us to keep going with our new venture,” adds Jeremy.

Requests also started to come in for more ‘Jeremy-style’ dishes so the team produced a ‘Fine Dining at Home’ menu which offered a variety of options together with a change to the Café’s menu too, to include Vera’s famous and delicious sweet and savoury tarts. The new menu has just launched, including Sunday roasts.

This menu, currently featuring South Coast lobster as one of the starters as well as a range of vegetarian options as starters and mains, and the Café’s famous shortcrust Dexter beef pie, is available for collection between 3pm and 6pm on Wednesdays and between 11am and 5pm Thursdays to Sundays. Matt, the restaurant’s front of house manager, has been working hard, in charge of logistics and ensuring customers can collect their orders in a safe environment.

“As the glorious spring weather continues to mitigate, to some extent, the anxiety of these troubled times, we continue to find new ways to extend the Jeremy’s and Café Elvira experience into the community and to our loyal friends and customers. We will carry on and hopefully, as one guest said, “Being a small ray of light in these dark times,” concludes Jeremy.

Dishes can be ordered with a minimum of 48 hours notice. Please call 01444 441102, or for orders after 5pm please email reservations@jeremysrestaurant.com

Menus can be viewed at www.jeremysrestaurant.co.uk Jeremy’s Restaurant, Borde Hill, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 1XP