Has the credit crunch started to sink its teeth into the Leeds restaurant scene? Arts and Entertainments Editor Rod McPhee found out.
CAFÈ Rouge will this weekend become the latest restaurant to disappear from the streets of Leeds.
The Assembly Street building is now being handed over to Italian restaurant Siena, which launches next month, but they insist the departure is nothinADVERTISEMENTg to do with the economic downturn.
"I can confirm that the Café Rouge on Assembly Street is due to close," said a spokesperson. "But this is because we opened a new Café Rouge in The Light centre last year."
But Café Rouge isn't alone. Over the last 18 months there's been other casualties – Plush, Cactus Lounge, Calls Grill and Leodis – and the recent credit crunch isn't the only explanation.
In the Exchange Quarter, for example, combining food and drink has been a precarious pursuit for some time. Over the past two years Pitcher and Piano, Waterloo House, Fudge, Townhouse, and most recently Cuban Heels have all departed.
Survivors, such as Oporto on Call Lane, quit dining some time ago. Oporto's boss Ged Feltham said: "When we launched our restaurant concept in the 1990s, it initially did very well.
"But with all food stuff you need to be steady seven days a week to keep it going which is very hard in Leeds city centre and even harder these days because you can't get people in during the week and you don't have enough space at the weekend."
It's a similar story down on the Waterfront where three restaurants have closed this autumn.
They included Noode on Dock Street and their next-door neighbour Nick's Brasserie.
Nick's Brasserie's head chef and founder Nick Colley said: "We have not struggled as a site overall. We have maintained a decent turnover over three years, and now that the apartments have been finished there, it would have been even better.
"It turned out to be a tough place for lunchtime trade, but much better at night time. It's been a rubbish summer and with a place with a huge outdoor seating area that was disappointing."
Interestingly the abysmal British weather is a factor which has frequently been a factor fate of our 'metropolitan' dining scene. Another recent Waterfront loser was Battered, the gourmet fish and chip restaurant launched only last year.
Co-owner Stephen Hawkins said: "If the weather had been better it might have given us a better chance to introduce the restaurant to more people since a big part of it was al fresco dining down by the waterside. But instead of sunshine we ended up with flash floods.
"That wasn't the only reason though. Battered was always a bit of a gamble. In the end older customers liked our product and not the surroundings, and the younger customers liked the surroundings and not the product.
"We could have carried on but since we're such a big company it just wasn't meeting our financial aspirations.
"I also think the Leeds restaurant scene is becoming saturated, but saturated with very mediocre places and the trouble is Leeds people want something special if they're going to part with their money."
So what does explain the recent spate of closures?
John Dammone, owner of Salvo's and one of the key founders of the Leeds Restaurant Association, believes it's a combination of factors. "I've been here for 32 years," he said, "and Leeds still has many fantastic restaurants but it's now a very different, competitive market.
"And restaurants aren't immune to a recession – I know this from experiencing recessions in the early 80s and the early 90s – but stronger brands with a reputation for quality will weather the storm while others will come and go.
"For example chain restaurants. They think they can just locate here and it will be an automatic success. But Leeds diners are much more discerning than that.
"Leeds is a fashionable city. There will always be restaurants which chase certain trends but then when that changes, so can the clientele. You need to be consistent and always move with the times, which isn't easy, or stick to your core values and stay at the top of your game, which is a challenge in itself."
But the big question is, how will increased competition and any looming recession affect Leeds restaurants?
John said: "Personally I think that we'll stand a better chance than we would have in the past. More and more people see eating out as a virtual necessity, whereas just 15 years ago people might have viewed it as a luxury. Now people are prepared to forego other things first.
"That's because there's now such a variety, so if you come home and there's no food in the house you can just pop out for a bite to eat and not spend too much money to do so.
"Of course there's always a cycle of openings and closures and that will continue but I don't think the Leeds restaurant scene has reached saturation quite yet because it's still expanding and despite the credit crunch it's just as vibrant as it ever was."
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