Top London venues faced with a sharp drop in footfall in the UK capital have turned to crowdfunding to survive as government support packages fail to cover steep overhead costs.
Camden’s Jazz Café, the 150-year-old Holloway pub The Lamb and the India Club on the Strand, founded around the time of Indian independence and linked to India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru among others, have launched crowdfunding campaigns to raise cash to see them through the latest lockdown.
The popular Hackney restaurant Pidgin and longstanding Soho heavy metal venue Crobar, which is looking to reopen at a new site after landlords refused to make allowances on rent, have also turned to crowdfunding.
Crowdfunder, one of the UK’s largest crowdfunding platforms, said it had launched 227 campaigns for pubs or restaurants since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, 95 of them for London venues.
With pandemic restrictions keeping international and domestic customers away…