‘Do you want just another chain?’: Family-run Italian restaurant may not survive eviction

By Ben Lynch, Local Democracy Reporter

A family-run Italian restaurant in Covent Garden may not survive if it’s evicted so a hotel reception and café can be created in its place, the owners fear. 

Harry Brown, general manager at Pasta Brown, whose grandfather opened the restaurant in the 1980s, said the cost of moving would leave its future ‘in the balance’.

Z Hotels is looking to reconfigure its Bedford Street premises to add more rooms and provide guest access from the front of the building, rather than via a smaller, private side-street owned by a neighbouring church. 

Part of that adaptation includes moving its reception and hotel café to the space currently occupied by Pasta Brown, requiring the restaurants eviction.

Mr Brown said while he is not naïve as to the reasons behind the restaurant potentially having to move, he believes there is a larger question as to what the council wants for Covent Garden and the West End. 

He said: “Do you want just another chain after chain with a faceless corporation, or do you want to go with a bit of personality that’s been in the area for a long time?”

A petition calling for support to fight the ‘eviction’ has reached more than 3,000 signatures. 

But Bev King, founder and chief executive officer of Z Hotels, said Pasta Brown’s lease was due to expire in late December and that he has offered support to help the restaurant find and move into another premises nearby.

Mr Brown acknowledged the support offered by Mr King.  But, he said the restaurant’s aim is to stay put, in large part because of the cost of moving elsewhere. 

He said: “It would mean that the future of the business would hang in the balance because we would want to stay in Covent Garden and the West End, but with the price of rent and moving would probably be too much; as it would if we were to buy a lease off someone who had a fully fitted restaurant.”

The submission is due to be decided by Westminster council’s Planning Applications Sub-Committee tonight. 

Officers have recommended that, while the loss of the restaurant would be ‘regrettable’, the request should be approved by councillors.

Planning documents filed by the applicant show seven new hotel bedrooms planned to be added to the rear of the building, boosting the total rooms from 113 to 120. 

Five objections were received, with none writing in support. Issues raised included the loss of the restaurant and that a hotel reception ‘does not create the same vibrancy or vitality’.

In a statement submitted in response to the plans, Pasta Brown said the restaurant has ‘deep roots in the community’, evidenced by work such as its partnerships with local charities. 

The statement said: “We are frustrated that Z Hotels have referred to us merely as a café in their application, and have not treated us as a restaurant with our integral role in the community and extensive charitable contributions.”

Council officers wrote in their report: “The hotel proposes to have a café to the front of the premises, which will also be open to members of the public, and the existing shopfront will be retained.

“The proposal will therefore maintain an active street frontage and retain the vitality and viability of the street and Covent Garden area.”

Pictured top: Pasta Brown General Manager, Harry Brown, outside the restaurant in Covent Garden (Picture: LDRS)