Autumn House staff member speaks out on sudden closure

As previously reported, the café, The Square, closed its doors suddenly on Monday, August 21, with the news being announced through a sign in the window.

The business, which was owned by Alex Donnan and Laura Turner, closed with no warning, with milk bottles left to go sour inside the building.

The sour milk inside Autumn House (Image: Andrew Napier)The member of staff, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Chronicle: “When the initial sign went up in the window, that was on the Monday (August 21). Then the Sunday beforehand we got a message through on our WhatsApp group chat basically saying that it was closed until further notice and that if any further details, we would have to approach the liquidators.

“And that was the only communication we had”.

READ MORE: Café Number 25 in Winchester closes its doors for good

The member of staff said that she believes she is owed around £2,000, with the entire staff owed at least a month’s wages.

She continued: “Every time we’ve tried to push for information about us getting paid, we haven’t had any help from (the owners). It’s just been us having to go through the liquidators every time, and we’re still waiting on being paid. I think the last time we had a pay cheque through was the end of July.

“It was all up in the air whether or not we were going to get paid, because that was towards the end of August, and we thought we would get the August pay cheque, but we haven’t had any help from them at all and we’re now into October and we haven’t even had a case number into whether the company has been liquidated yet.”

The staff member said that the closure came very suddenly, saying: “We had completed the rota for the next week. We’d had a quiet summer, and we knew it wasn’t as busy as it was, but that’s the natural cycle of cafes anyway.

“It was quite out of the blue. And there weren’t any meetings. They didn’t sit down with us to say, ‘This is what’s happening financially’.

The notice announcing the closure of Autumn House (Image: Adele Bouchard)“If you’re the owner of this business and you cared so much about it, why would you not come in and talk to your staff?"

She went on to say that both Mr Donnan and Ms Turner were hands-off when it came to running the business: “They were never very present among the staff. They had weekly meetings with upper management, but I would see them maybe once a month. They felt quite far back from the business.

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“You got the impression that there were 100 plates spinning at any one time because they were never fully attentive on just Autumn House. There was always The Pump House, Number 25, always the kids, and this and that. And you’re there thinking, ‘I don’t know how you’re running this business’. And there are the people on the ground who were doing 45-hour weeks. And there was ordering, and rotas being done by everyone and it was everyone pitching in at the same level.

“Alex did that piece where he talked about just wanting to set up loads of businesses, but the hard work actually comes from staying present in a business and making it work long-term. You can’t just open a business and expect it to do well and then flit away and expect everyone to keep going with it.”

While the staff member said she had managed to find a new job, she told the Chronicle that a lot of other staff members are still job hunting.

She said: “I think we all feel really disappointed. It feels like it must have been inevitable to them that it was happening, but we were never contacted about it and it feels quite intentional. It feels like we were taken for a bit of a ride.”