Rows collapse alert: City Sushi Bar’s Valentine’s plans in ruins

Feb 11 2010 by Naomi Dunning, Chester Chronicle

Rows collapse alert: City Sushi Bar’s Valentine’s plans in ruins

VALENTINE’S weekend will be ruined for a restaurant in Bridge Street.

Dan Shepherd, owner of The Sushi Bar, said he has been warned he probably will not be able to open his restaurant for at least a week.

Dan was told just after midday yesterday his restaurant would not be able to open due to the imminent danger of the building next door collapsing.

He said: “They came and told us we would have to close at 1.30pm. We usually open at midday so decided not to open at all.”

Mr Shepherd said he had been looking forward to a busy, profit making Valentine’s weekend and for the first time the restaurant would open on a Sunday. But Dan has been told to expect to be closed until next week as the building has to be made safe.

He said: “We were fully booked both Saturday and Sunday for Valentine’s Day. We have lots of people looking forward to spending their evening with us.”

He added: “We don’t usually take bookings but we did for the first time this weekend. We have booking for Saturday and Sunday every hour from 5 o’clock. It’s a disaster.

“We don’t even have contact details for many of our bookings, so we have no way of letting them know.

“We will have people turning up expecting to have a nice meal out only to find us closed. It is going to be a real problem for us, they will think we have let them down.

“I just hope our customers will understand.”