St Andrew Square cafe to change hands

 

 It appears that the cafe in St Andrew Square is to change hands again. For any of you who have been watching carefully this will be the third operator in under a year. 

The longest running venture in the Glass building in the square was Razzo Cafe but the lease was terminated by Essential Edinburgh  in June 2014. Paul Anderson had kept the cafe open all the way through Occupy Edinburgh who used the square for their protest.  A Twitter storm with the hashtag #saverazzo followed the eviction of the popular cafe owner. 

A new but temporary cafe operator will open the doors on Thursday morning and then the process to put the premises out to tender will begin.

A spokesman for Essential Edinburgh who run the Business Improvement District and are responsible for the management of the square said: “The coffee shop closed on Saturday but will re-open on Thursday morning with a temporary operator in place for two months while a tender process takes place. We hope to have the permanent operator in place for 1st June.”

We have been told that one of the drawbacks of the site is the lack of public toilets. In recent plans an application was made to install them behind the cafe, but we have been told that application was unsuccessful. 

When the cafe was closed last summer Paul Anderson posted a notice saying: ““Monday 23 June 2014 is the last day Razzo Coffee can trade from this property. Our landlord Essential Edinburgh, has found a paperwork technicality to allow them to terminate our lease with immediate effect. We have not been given a reason for the decision and they refuse to communicate with us. We can confirm it was not based on any financial issues; their actions will force us out of business and our staff will lose their jobs.

“We are appealing to the City of Edinburgh Council who fund Essential Edinburgh and would appreciate any notes of support to paul@razzocoffee.co.uk

“Finally thank you for your custom over the past six years.”

Essential Edinburgh said at the time that there had been ongoing breaches of the lease which gave them no option but to serve the eviction notice. 

A temporary operator was put in place and the most noticeable thing was that there were suddenly many more parasols and tables outside the cafe. 

In recent weeks many have commented on the state of the gardens after the festive season. The grass areas have still not recovered and there are areas beside the footpath which still have plastic matting on them.