An Ayrshire restaurant group has issued a plea to customers to be "tolerant, understanding and supportive" of their hospitality teams amid rising in Covid cases and staff shortages due to self-isolation restrictions.

The family owned company, SimpsInns, operates award winning hotels, restaurants, bars, golf and leisure at venues across Ayrshire, including the Waterside Hotel in West Kilbride, Old Loans Inn in Troon and Gailes Hotel and the Si! restaurant in Irvine.

They are currently re-locating staff between venues and locations to try and ease the staff shortages and relieve pressures from employees still able to work and improve mental wellbeing - however, are asking customers to be patient with any short term changes required to cope with Covid-related challenges. 

A spokesperson from the SimpsInns group said: "Due to current restrictions and high instances of our team requiring to isolate under instruction from Track and Trace, we may be required to limit or suspend periods of services and dining available in our venues.

"This may include reducing available capacity in the restaurants, bars, and gardens, and in some extreme instances, we may be required to close restaurants and bars in some of our properties for a period to give team breaks and a chance to restock and prepare for the following service.

"Even more frequently, at very short notice, a varying amount of our team are requiring to self-isolate resulting in an insufficient team to provide adequent service. 

"As you can imagine, this is incredibly difficult for the remaining team throughout their, often extended, working days.

"We are taking steps to ensure we give support to the existing operating teams by relocating members of staff from our other venues. 

"We appreciate that everyone is working extremely hard and diligently to provide exceptional above and beyond service in very difficult circumstances and we thank all the team very much.

"We are you to be tolerant, understanding and supportive of our team during this very difficult situation, and appreciate that service may be slower and not up to our usual standard.

"Please be assured we are all doing our very best.

"This situation affects not our front of house restaurant and bar staff, but also our back of house team from chefs to housekeeping and our reception and banqueting team, who are also working hard to support and deliver the very best in service.

"We are taking these steps to ensure the health and safety and the mental wellbeing of our team and guests whilst endeavouring to deliver the best service possible.

"Thank you once again to all our guests and team for their continued hard work and support in these difficult times."