The owner of one of Bracknell’s most popular community cafes has announced that unless dramatic changes are made, they could face closure this winter.

Claire Murphy, from Binfield, opened The Foxes Den with the purpose of providing a warm safe hub for people throughout the community to find a home away from home.

However, with everything from food prices to ultility prices rising, the struggle is real when attempting to sustain a CIC like the Binfield community café.

Claire said: “The economy in general is affecting how the café is performing at the moment and we’ve been seeing the struggle over the last few months.

“We do a lot of our own baking and we have quite a large selection of cakes. The hike in food prices has been scary especially when for example butter has doubled in price.

“It’s quite scary trying to make the books balance really.”

Over the past couple of months, Claire has been working on a strategy to help reduce expenditure and increase revenue. In time, the aim is to create a self-sustaining business with the continued aim of helping the community.

She explained: “In the new year, we are finding that we will have to reduce the menu that we had in the summer. This however will unfortunately affect staffing levels. 

“We’re still going to offers some amazing things, but we can’t do our full summer menu.

“So, from January we plan to showcase a winter menu and come back fighting. However, we’ll have to be very careful about wastage and our cost and making sure that what we are offering is what the customers want.”

As a CIC, the Foxes Den gives 65% of their income back into the community and therefore finding a way to stay open is vital to continue to make sure that they are able to support residents.

They currently employ 17 local part time staff which has been their main expenditure over the last 4 years.

On her Facebook page, Claire addressed the issues that the café has been struggling with and appealed for support, kindness and patience as we enter the new year.

She added: “What I’m asking is for them to support us in terms of coming to see us and coming to keep warm if that’s what they need. We just want to see those friendly faces coming through the door and we’ll keep going.

“The amount of outpouring of love and support has been so lovely, and we’re really touched by that.

“If we had to close I believe it would leave quite a lot of people isolated who depend on the groups and services that take place in the café.

“Not only do we offer a place for older residents, we also have a thriving young mummies situation set up as well where we do a free toddlers group.

“I think it would really be missed if it was gone. It’s just trying to figure out a format that is sustainable in today’s economic climate.

“We just have to keep going and come back fighting, and we will.”