Shailesh Vara MP visited The Ale House & Kitchen in Ramsey last Saturday when pubs and restaurants opened up again following the lockdown.

Mr Vara was joined by Mayor of Ramsey, Cllr Steve Corney and Cllr John Palmer and his wife Anne.

The Ale House & Kitchen is run by Matt Parkins and Oliver Gee who in recent weeks have been working hard to make their premises a safe place for people to visit.

Following the visit Mr Vara said:

“I was very pleased to visit the Ale House & Kitchen on the first day of the reopening of pubs. It’s been a long wait to have a pint in a pub again. Matt and Ollie have put in a huge amount of work to ensure that a visit to their pub is both enjoyable and safe and it was good to see many people coming in during the time I was there. I hope it won’t be long before I visit again.”

Mayor Cllr Corney added:

“I was delighted to be supporting the local High Street in Ramsey and in particular the Ale House. It was great to visit the pub again and I hope others will also support businesses generally in our area as we ease up on lockdown.”

Cllr John Palmer commented:

“It’s really good to see the reopening of pubs and restaurants. Whilst ensuring that there is proper social distancing, hopefully we will see a return to more social interaction between friends and family in our local pubs and restaurants.

Matt Parkins added:

“It was great to have Shailesh joining us as we opened up to the public last Saturday. We’ve put in place proper social distancing measures and it was good to see that on our first day of opening many regulars come back. We have missed them as much as they have missed us! We’re serving drinks for now but we hope it won’t be long before our restaurant is open again for our regular diners too.”

Photo: Matt Parkins, Anne Palmer, Shailesh Vara MP, Oliver Gee, Cllr John Palmer and Mayor Cllr Steve Corney.