A family business in Andover has paid tribute to its customers with a celebration at the weekend.

Vigo Nursery, located on Vigo Road, threw open its doors with food including paella, burgers and sausages laid on for free to customers to thank them for their support during Covid.

Sara, from the nursery, said that they were all very pleased with the turnout, telling the Advertiser: “It’s nice to see people down here and the weather was lovely which helped. We had a lot of our regular customers which we recognised and it was nice to see them back and supporting us after a hard year and enjoy their lunch.

“We had a few new people as well who hadn’t been here before who had maybe seen it online so it was lovely to see them.”

Vigo Nursery is a staple of Andover business, having been founded in 1954 by Fred and Dorothy Blake and still owned by the family today.

During the first lockdown, it was forced to close alongside many other businesses before being allowed to reopen in May.

Sara said: “We were very busy, when we first opened in May people had been at home with lovely weather and so we were really, really busy with people getting all their supplies.

“We put lots of measures in place like screens but we’re fortunate that it’s a wide open space so it’s easy to social distance here and there’s plenty of fresh air. We’ve been busy but we’re grateful to our customers as not everybody had been keen to get out in the last year.”

She said there had been “a surge in gardening interest,” saying: “Everyone is doing gardening now, with a lot of new customers who have maybe never done gardening before got into their gardens during Covid and have continued to keep coming back.”

The idea for the celebration came from Christopher Blake, who runs the nursery alongside his brother Colin and Colin’s wife Janice.

Sara said: “My boss Chris came up with the idea to have a complimentary lunch to thank our customers who have supported us through the pandemic and so we had Chez Lemon in to do paella, burgers and sausages for everyone who was here.”

One of those attending was Councillor Iris Andersen, who praised the “lovely” event.

“They work so hard,” she said. “All these business haven’t exactly had it easy having had to close down until government guidelines allowed them to reopen so I think an event like this is really good and supportive. They catered for everyone from adults to children, with the full spread of toppings.”

There are plans for another celebration later this year in the autumn, with a ‘winter-warmer’-style event planned.