Customers heartbroken as popular Derbyshire café and deli forced to close
A popular Derbyshire café has been forced to close its doors due to increasing costs.
Bramhalls' Deli & Café at the Market Place in Ashbourne has announced its permanent closure earlier today, leaving many loyal customers upset.
Sad for the owners, but customers are hardly likely to be heartbroken. Oh well, that's local journalism for you.
More likely is customers giving a shrug and a moan about the demise of the high street. Then time moves on and memories fade, but Ashbourne is still the gateway to some of the most beautiful scenery in Derbyshire.
5 comments:
I have very vague memories of Ashbourne as it's where we were dropped off on a school hiking trip in about 1972.
Ashbourne church has a famous spire, and there's a Victorian one where we used to live in Cambridge that is supposed to be an exact copy.
And in my wife's last job, the first funeral she did was of Lord Ashbourne. I don't suppose he'd ever been there, though. Or he may have been a regular at Bramhall's, and his absence led to them closing.
Sam - it's a pleasant place although we haven't been there for a few years. We usually approach the area just beyond Ashbourne from another direction. It had a Waitrose which closed some years ago, but I don't know if that indicates anything. A quick check suggests Lord Ashbourne was connected with Ashbourne in Ireland.
That's a shame: we like Ashbourne, and Bramhall's was our usual place for lunch. We probably first went there about five years ago, more perhaps; but it's noticeably deteriorated over the years. Fewer and less interesting menu choices, for instance; and the once-excellent cheese counter (and deli in general) had shrunk so much that it became almost laughable. It's a self-perpetuating circle, isn't it? Fewer customers so a reduction in choice so fewer customers repeat until closure.
Doubtless another thing we can blame at least in part to the covid lockdowns. When people aren't allowed to do X, then don't necessarily resume the habit of doing it when they're allowed to again.
"popular Derbyshire café and deli": not popular enough, it would seem.
P.S I sometimes wonder if any journalist in recoded history has used the verb "to force" accurately.
Paul - we went once years ago and yes, it's a pity it has to close. Over the years a number of antiques shops closed in Ashbourne, then Waitrose closed a few years ago. Different times, different customers perhaps, but it looks like a drift down market too. I hope not.
dearieme - I bet they don't even notice their use of "to force", as if in their world ordinary people aren't allowed to make decisions.
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