Scarborough restaurant The Cockpit set to close down as costs soar from £500 to £2400

The restaurant, which is located on Newborough, Scarborough opened up in October 2020.

It was faced with weeks of lockdown, but offering a takeaway service meant it survived and after growing a relationship with Scholars bar, it has been a popular place for the town.

Sadly, it is now closing on Saturday June 3 due after ‘soaring prices’ made it difficult to remain open.

In a post on Facebook, the restaurant said: “It has been an absolute pleasure to serve you our parmos, burgers and homemade chips these past two and a half years.

“Like many hospitality venues, the soaring costs have made it very difficult to continue to operate.

“I would like to thank each and every one of our amazing customers over the years, we really do appreciate all of the support, reviews and kind words received! We will miss you all!

“We will hold back the tears this week and try to make it such an amazing end of an era.”

Richard Malton , owner of The Cockpit, told The Scarborough News: “Our electric contract came to an end in March, we were already paying £500 a month and unfortunately it skyrocketed to £2400 a month.

“This on top of the rising costs of food products, in particular chicken, oil and even down to nachos, we just could not keep going.

“As we make 90% of food fresh in house we really needed to up our prices or change to a cheap frozen product. We did not want to do either of these as we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, so we felt if we upped our prices we would not feature in peoples budgets.

“It has been a very tough decision to close the doors and it’s been weighing on us for a while now. We tried to hold out as long as we possibly could however it is now time.”

Mr Malton also owns The Munchbox on Victoria road, a small takeaway breakfast and lunch cafe which remains unaffected.