A popular Bristol restaurant has announced its closure.
Pasta Loco, which is owned by the Bianchis group, announced via Instagram that it had ceased trading on Monday (July 17).
Pasta Loco was the first venue from the family team who have since gone on to open other restaurants including Pasta Ripiena, Pizza Bianchis and Cotto.
In a statement, Pasta Loco owners and cousins Dom Borel and Ben Harvey said they were closing “with a heavy heart”.
Pasta Loco opened in 2016, with the owners saying that it was “the realisation of a dream… Growing up in a family of Italian heritage here in Bristol, we knew what authentic hospitality and good food was from the start”.
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Mr Borel and Mr Harvey have blamed council bureaucracy as one of the reasons for the restaurant’s closure, saying that the Cotham Hill pedestrianisation scheme “has been poorly managed, terribly communicated and littered with awful decision making”.
The pair explained how this was the "nail in the coffin". They said that whilst the understood the need for the project to be completed the "absence" of collaboration was damaging.
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The said: "We have been allocated enough space for two outside tables, as a cycle lane will through the centre of the road. We know that the loss in covers would mean letting go of nearly half our staff. Ultimately, this option was unacceptable to us, so we have taken the hard decision to close and take our business elsewhere."
The Italian restaurant had last year . Like most restaurants, Pasta Loco emerged from the pandemic facing new challenges and with increased debts.
With rising energy and food costs, as well as VAT returning to 20% last April, Pasta Loco said it had no choice but to increase all dishes by 50p.
The owners reiterated these challenges in their closing post and said: “It is well known the difficulties that our industry is facing; energy costs are triple what they were, the rising cost of labour, huge increases on core ingredients and, regrettably, landlords hiking the rent to unjustifiably high levels, which, sadly, has been the case at Pasta Loco. These elements are all major factors in our decision to close."
Mr Borel and Mr Harvey turned the venue from a "greasy spoon" into the popular restaurant in 2016.
They said: "Many people doubted that Ben’s vision for a fresh pasta restaurant had a place on the Bristol food scene. Pasta Loco proved that place existed and gave our team the confidence to grow; Pasta Ripiena followed, then Sorella (now Cotto), then Bianchis, with Pizza Bianchi following on after the pandemic.
“We now have over 80 employees who are well paid and a company culture that deliberately prioritises opportunity and a healthy work/life balance."
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Mr Borel and Mr Harvey thanked their customers: “We would like to thank all of our customers, those who have been with us from the beginning and who we’re just getting to know. All of you are Loco-family to us."
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