Following on from months of serving customers remotely and hours of Zoom consultations, we are very excited and looking forward to the 12th April when non-essential shops will be able to re-open and we will be able to welcome customers through our doors once again.
Here at Just Flutes we will be returning to an appointments system for customers to play-test instruments in a safe environment. We invite you to book your appointment online: following government guidelines, initially we will be able to welcome two people from the same household until 15th May, when – all being well – we will be able to accommodate three people from two households.
We are anticipating a pent-up demand after being closed to walk-in customers for five months, and there are limited appointments so please be patient when making your booking. We are allowing a maximum of one appointment booking per day per customer, and to allow for extra demand we are offering evening and Sunday appointments. Because we are keeping our quarantine period in place, we are limiting trials to three instruments per appointment.
Of course, many of our customers may be thinking – that like other more “ordinary” shops – we will be adopting an open-door policy. This unfortunately will not be the case, and we will remain closed to walk-in customers. We have taken this difficult decision because of the nature of our shop and its layout: social distancing is simply not possible, and we want to do everything we can to help prevent the country heading back into lockdown! We hope to be able to review this in the summer: at the time of writing, our aim is to reopen “business as usual” when all restrictions are lifted (currently pencilled in by the government for 21 June).
One thing that the pandemic has taught us is just how easily respiratory viruses and germs can be spread, and how long they can stay airborne. When dealing as we are in musical instruments which are put to the mouth and blown down, we feel we have a duty to maintain our high hygiene standards after the pandemic is through, and so we will continue to use our thorough sanitisation procedure and quarantine period on all instruments for the foreseeable future.
Timeline for In-Store Shopping
All dates are subject to change in line with government guidance.
- From Monday 12th April
Instrument trials only, by appointment. Maximum of two people from the same household - From Monday 17th May
Instrument trials only, by appointment. Maximum of three people from two households - From Monday 21st June
A more relaxed open-door policy for walk-in customers shopping for accessories and sheet music. Instrument trials by appointments only.
We very much look forward to welcoming our customers back through our doors, and hope that this slow cautious start will be the first steps to normality after a tough year for us all.
