Author: Sally Perry
Besty & Spinky Receive Notice For Cafe Premises
2:09 pm Thursday, 13th January, 2011, Isle of Wight
ShortURL: http://wig.ht/bestyspinky
Read More- Community, Food & Drink, News, Ventnor
Long time VB readers will know that we’re big fans of Besty and Spinky’s (Ventnor Bay) cafe on Ventnor’s seafront.
We love their breakfasts so much we awarded them best fry-up in Ventnor back in 2007.
So it was with great sadness when we heard yesterday that the hard working team who have been running the cafe since October 2006, have been served notice on the premises.
Apparently the landlord, who also owns the amusement arcade next door, wants to take control of the cafe.
Alan (Besty), Mike (Spinky) and the team have worked hard building up a loyal base of customers.
We’re sure they’ll will be keen to follow them to their next premises, which Alan tells us they haven’t secured yet, but we’ll keep you in the loop when we hear otherwise.
The last day the lads will be trading is Sunday 13th March.
We reckon it’ll be a busy day for the Ventnor Bay Cafe team.
Best of luck to all at Ventnor Bay Cafe, we hope you manage to find a new base in the town very soon.
I hear there is a rather large cafe going up the top of the cascade!!
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This seems typical of most landlords. You build a good business and they thinks they can take over the tenant business, or just make a lot more rent on the back of someone else’s hard graft. Good luck to them with either plan,
Good luck with the new cafe. I’m sure you will succeed.
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why shouldnt the landlord do that? He is after all in business himself too. More fool the lads for not getting a rental contract garanteeing their term. Its the landlords property, he has given them the correct notice, and thats that.
As others say, the reputation will follow the people, not the cafe. How many times do we hear that someone new has taken a place over and that its not as good. Normally the next thing you hear is where the previous people have moved to. Hopefully, they will move on, find new premises, and get a rental contract that garantees them more notice.
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PS, i should have changed my name there to reflect my views on this story. Im sure the lads are not ungreatful in any way.
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Have to say, their fried eggs are the best, and I mean THE BEST, on the Island.
All the best lads, hope the landlord has a disaster.
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This is a real shame, I absolutely love that place. I recently suggested it to a national journo as ‘The best place to start your Island day’.
I really do hope they find new premises soon.
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It’s not just about the quality of the food either. I can name at least TWENTY Ventnor kids who have had their first Job at Besty and Spinky’s Ventnor Bay Cafe… and what great employers they’ve been! I join the rest of Ventnor in wishing them every success in the future.
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I hope everyone supports them in their new premises and let’s all boycott the existing premises when Besty and Spinky leave!!!!
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My mornings will never be the same again until they get another place and I am just hoping it will be somewhere along the seafront. It’s a meeting place, a warm welcome and a superb value breakfast. They have wroked hard to build a soild business, the only one thriving early mornings on the Esplanade, and they need support to find other premises, quickly.
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I think a lot of people are missing the point here? A very great proportion of their trade must come from visitors, given the location – and the visitors won’t know that it’s changed hands, or where they have moved to. Shame – it really is the best fry-up in town
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“visitors won’t know that it’s changed hands”
They’ll know if the food or service is rubbish, though. It sounds to me as if the landlord thinks he can capitalise on their success, ignoring the work required to make it so. Just greedy – he could have left them there and enjoyed the extra passing trade…
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Many other cafes on the front are also not as good as Besty and Spinky because the owners are unreliable in their opening hours – they can’t be bothered opening every day or they can’t be bothered opening for more than seven months of the year. The one’s with reliable opening hours are The Spyglass, The Met, The Millbay and Blakes fish and chips but these are a different experience to Besty and Spinky so are not really competitors. Besty and Spinky are the only ones to serve early morning breakfast in January and they are so obliging and their food is not greasy. They know their market and their pricing is spot on. They are also good cooks which is unusual for this type of cafe – that’s why the locals keep going back and back and that’s why they recommend them to others.
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This is a real shame. The boys work really hard and are friendly to boot, as well as opening at times others won’t (some people live in Ventnor and are not just down for the summer). The breakfasts are possibly my favourite of anywhere.
It would be difficult to get premises in such a great spot, but good luck to them and I will certainly check out their new venue. The new patrons will have a hard act to follow and will have to put in a lot of effort to get to the same standards.
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Just been down for our usual brunch and the Sunday papers. I know all’s fair in business but think these guys have been taken advantage of. They are local, employe (and train) local people and run a very good cafe well loved by local people and tourists alike. To have an absent landlord try and muscle in is abhorent and worthy of wider public protest. Have identified the directors of the company that owns the property and intend to make them aware of the damage this will do to our community.
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