How Basingstoke diners can get their hands on a special tea towel

Basingstoke Together is giving coffee shops and restaurants a limited number of exclusive towels to gift to their customers next week.

The tea towels feature a map of the town made up of famous places, faces and moments from the history of the town and will be offered to selected customers on a first come first serve basis.

Jane Stewart, chief executive of Basingstoke Together, said: “We can’t begin to describe how excited businesses are to re-open for indoor customers. It’s been an extremely difficult winter for businesses. The local and national restrictions have meant many of them haven’t been open since Christmas Eve. Now that the case numbers have fallen and more and more of us are getting the vaccine, we can have real hope that this is the last time businesses will need to close. Now they can focus on welcoming back customers, a successful summer and coming back stronger.

"As Basingstoke Together will be closing at the end of May, we’re sorry we can’t do more to support businesses during this period of re-opening but we will endeavour to do everything we can in the coming weeks. Part of that is giving businesses these tea towels as a gift for their returning customers. We’ve had the artwork for the map for a while now but weren’t able to use it so I’m glad it’s finally getting out there in some form.”

Andy and Agnes Fixler, owners of The First Floor Tear Room on Church Street, said: "After many, very lengthy months, we are pleased to be able to re-open for indoor dinning from Tuesday next week. We are very much looking forward to welcoming customers back. It has been very silent and empty without them. It will be so good to see The Tea Room coming back to life as it fills up with people, we cannot wait.”

The tea towels will be available for free for those dining indoors at Willow's Coffee Shops. The Tea Bar, The First Floor Tea Room and Festival Street Kitchen.