“When the pandemic started, it was all a bit crazy and we were very busy” recalls Ali Kara who has worked in the shop ever since he was teenager and took over the running of this much-loved Walworth business from his brother Yilmaz, last July.
“At the beginning, everyone was rushing around panic buying as no one was sure how long lockdown would last. But now things have calmed down a lot” he adds.
With its bright orange sign and colourful fruit and veg displays, Oli Food Centre is the place everyone knows and recommends on the Walworth Road.
“People love Oli Food Centre as we stock everything” says Ali. “We are Turkish, but we stock food from all over the world; Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Polish, everywhere! And our customers are of all nationalities.”
Ali says that when lockdown began he still managed to source most things for his customers but eggs, flour and toilet roll, especially, were hard to come by.
“People all seemed to want to buy toilet roll, but my usual suppliers didn’t have any and all the cash-and-carrys had sold out too. I ended up finding some, but they didn’t deliver so I had to drive across London and collect it myself. They were charging quite a lot for it, so we had to put our prices up, temporarily, but things seem to have gone back to normal now.”
The shop has a bakery downstairs and all through the crisis they carried on as normal producing their hugely popular Turkish and Cypriot flatbreads and loaves.
“People were very happy to have that” says Ali.
finding eggs was difficult but we could definitely help with the flour.
It also meant they had a good supply of flour, some of which they shared with customers.
“We put some flour in 1kg and 2kg bags so that we could sell it to people that asked, and everyone was very grateful. Because this all happened in the run up to Easter, I think people were making lots of cakes and baking more and although finding eggs was still difficult at times we could definitely help with the flour.”
With increased demand from customers, re-stocking the shelves became an issue, so after years of being open around the clock (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) Ali took a big decision to temporarily limit their opening hours.
“It did feel odd to close the doors but we had to do it. For three weeks we closed at 9pm and re-opened at 7am. It meant we could make sure that by the next day the shelves were all full again and that people could get what they needed” he explains.
Although they were still open to local NHS staff and police officers. “During the night we were still inside, working, so we let them know that they could knock on the door and our staff would go and get things for them” says Ali.
They also introduced a 15 per cent discount for NHS and police employees which is still in place now. “It’s our way of saying thank you for all their hard work looking after us and keeping us safe” says Ali. “They just need to show us their work ID at the till”.
Oli Food Centre also helped older customers who weren’t able to leave their homes.
“We let them know that if they couldn’t get out, they could phone us and we would deliver to them. We did that regularly for quite a few people” says Ali.
Whilst many other businesses on Walworth Road have been closed until now, those that have been open have been supporting each other as much as they can says Ali.
“Iceland, who are next door to us, have been very helpful” he says. “When social distancing rules first came in we had long queues and so did they. It was all a bit confusing as they merged into each other. We chatted about it and they changed the direction of their queue which has made everything so much easier.”
Ali says, now that everything has settled down a bit, he’s exploring ways to change the layout of the shop so that it’s easier for his staff and customers to social distance. “We are looking at where everything is located and whether we can move things around to have more open space” he says.
Ali is very glad that Oli Food Centre could stay open all the way through lockdown, but he also says the last few months have been very tough on him and his family.
“My store manager and I were working 16-hour days and it was so exhausting. But now things are a bit more normal and at least I get to spend time with my family and my two young children again” he smiles.
Oli Food Centre
332-334 Walworth Road
London SE17 2NA
020 7703 9765
Return to the home page for the Elephant Magazine, Summer 2020