Dumfries cafe announces closure 'with a heavy heart'

A Dumfries cafe has announced that it will be closing due to financial pressures.

The Frothy Bike Company has announced the closure of its cafe on the Whitesands in the town.

The cafe will shut on Sunday, 7 April, although the bike department of the business will remain open.

Owner Ross Anderson explains that the financial pressures the cafe has been experiencing have stemmed from the Covid pandemic.

He said: "We are closing the cafe for financial reasons. It has never really been strong since Covid, we kept telling ourselves it would get better but it’s not getting better.

"The general consumer isn’t what they used to be before the pandemic.

"So we have struggled to get the footfall back up, and staff recruitment as well, the hospitality trade was hit pretty hard trying to bring in good staff. We lost all of our staff through Covid, everyone went away and got other jobs."

The cafe has been open for five years in Dumfries.

Ross added: "I am looking forward not to having the SEPA flood warning texts come through to me at 1am.

"You are waking up in a sweat trying to get the sandbags and the pumps organised, I am looking forward to not worrying about that."

Stephen Montgomery from the Scottish Hospitality Group believes the hospitality industry is still recovering from the pandemic.

He said: “The pandemic really hit the hospitality sector, really more than any other sector across the economy.

"We had chefs who were home all of the time and decided to go onto other jobs. You had other people in the sector that went into other jobs in places like supermarkets.

"Any wage inflation has to be added on to the consumer. At a time like now when we are in a cost of living crisis it is really hard for us not to pass that on.

"There is only so much you can pass on, disposable income is what encourages people into hospitality and if they haven’t got that money at the end of the week they are not coming out."

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