Furious York restaurateur to close his seaside venue due to ‘utter lack of support’ from council

Top restaurateur Andrew Pern is to close one of his Star restaurants.

Mr Pern runs the Star Inn The City in York, as well as the Star Inn at Harome – recently reopened after a devastating fire.

He’s now announced that his Whitby restaurant Star Inn the Harbour said it close on 12 November because of the “utter lack of support” received from Scarborough Borough Council, which he said provided just two months’ Covid business support.

Mr Pern said: “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we have decided to close The Star Inn the Harbour.

“The most damaging and miserable fact that marks their card is that [the council] took rent from us and most other businesses in the town during lockdown when we didn’t have a penny coming in.

“How greedy and short-sighted is that in a place which relies heavily on tourism and hospitality?”

He added that the restaurant has been forced to close as it approaches the costlier winter months and after a “continuous battle” to work with the council since opening in 2017.

All staff at the Whitby restaurant have been offered jobs at the other sites, Mr Pern said.

Don’t blame it on us – council

A spokesperson for Scarborough Borough Council said: “We are sad to hear about the decision to close the Star Inn the Harbour in Whitby, but to blame it on us is unfair.

“We have been working closely with the restaurant for several months to ensure it can continue to trade during difficult times.

“At the restaurant’s request we renegotiated the terms of its tenancy. Those terms were agreed in good faith but the restaurant recently walked away.

“Our local support for the restaurant has been in addition to the national help it was eligible for such as Covid grants and the Government furlough scheme.

“As the custodian of public money, there will always be a limit to the help we can provide to individual businesses.”

Hospitality in crisis

The chef was forced to close his Low Petergate bistro Mr P’s Curious Tavern in 2020 after it was hit by the Covid lockdowns.

He is, however, leading the team opening The Winter Hütte, a pop-up, two-storey traditional Swiss chalet in Parliament Street.

It comes as a new survey says a third of restaurants, pubs and hotels are at brink of collapse.

A survey of more than 500 businesses in the hospitality sector found that the vast majority are facing higher energy and food costs, which has sent confidence in the future survival of their firm plummeting.

Leading trade associations UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association, The British Institute of Innkeeping and Hospitality Ulster joined forces to urge the Government to provide a lifeline for struggling firms.

The survey found that more than a third of hospitality businesses were expecting to be operating at a loss or be financially unviable by the end of the year. It comes as a massive 96% said they were experiencing higher energy costs and 93% complained of food price inflation.

Meanwhile, more than three quarters of hospitality venues reported seeing a decline in people eating and drinking out in a sign that cost-of-living pressures have taken a toll on consumer spending, with 85% expecting it to get worse.

The trade bodies – which collectively represent tens of thousands of businesses across the UK – said that further business rates relief is “critical” to avoid companies’ facing a cliff-edge in April next year, when the new tax year begins.

They added: “In the long-term, a move to cut VAT for hospitality would do wonders in giving consumers the confidence they need to support their local hospitality businesses, which are so important to our local communities and the economy.”