Deshi Khana Indian Restaurant

[Andreas Rex]

The door was open when I walked past earlier...they were putting a small stud wall in front of the doorway, creating a tiny foyer bit. No idea why. When they do construction work in there and you think "Why??", it's usually being done by Raj's workers, and isn't necessarily what the new restaurateurs want.

I'll pop in this week and get some info....and, hopefully, another invite to another opening night!

 

[flossietoo]

If you are speaking to Raj, could you possibly check that his Alsatian is OK? I cycle past his house most days and the dog always goes berserk on the other side of the fence. One day last week it burst straight through the fence and launched itself at the bike. I managed to keep my balance but was pretty shaken up and it wasn't until I'd ridden on a bit I started thinking about the dog, loose in the road. I saw a man walking from a nearby home and asked him to let them know the dog was out but I haven't set eyes on it, since.

Needless to say, my husband thinks I am completely 'barking' to worry about the dog but in fairness, I wasn't hurt and I'd hate to think the dog had been hit by a car or something.

 

[gilbert grape]

Yep, new place appearing in place of the older Indian restaurant... no consideration for the locals - working late at night with drills and other power tools being one such complaint but my biggest one is paint all over the pavements and my car, which was unfortunately parked in the spot nearest to the building and is now covered in small spots of oversprayed paint which will not budge. My attempts to complain fell on deaf ears as the guy we spoke to wasn't fluent in English - at first he thought we were complaining about where he'd parked his car, then was oblivious to the mess my car was in, and finally offered to clean it up "if you bring cold water" and pick it off - making my already damaged paintwork worse in the process, I don't want to replace white spots with shiny metal scratches!
Oh, and he didn't know who his boss was as he'd only started working there yesterday.

I'll be writing a letter to formally complain to the guy, not even the noisy Greek restaurant was this bad. And these new guys haven't even opened for business yet!

Very poor but not totally expected with some peoples' standards these days. To this day I'm still confuzzled that nobody took it on and did what Ash did - basic decent pub grub and decent beer. We are still limited for a proper town centre pub serving such like. It's all chains or slightly more expensive.

 

[Glam]

I noticed they'd given the pavements a good coat, as per last time, when I walked past earlier. I'm pretty sure the people who painted are, yet again, contracted by the owner of the building and not the new peeps. I can give you their full details.

Thank you Andreas Rex for that link, I passed it on to MoD (my little soldier).

 

[Gramaisc]

To this day I'm still confuzzled that nobody took it on and did what Ash did - basic decent pub grub and decent beer.

Pie & Ale, Chambers - there might be clues there...

 

[gilbert grape]

Pie & Ale, Chambers - there might be clues there...

As far as I could see, Ash had a steady trade whereas those two fluctuated. I ate in there on various nights and Mum & Dad used to pop in at dinner time.
However, like a man in orthopaedic shoes, I stand to be corrected!

 

[MoD1982]

Cheers for the kind words all, I've put the car through the car wash at Asda and there's still a decent amount of paint on the car. Through one of Glam's mates(I'm assuming Andreas?) I've got a method of contacting the painters; first thing in the morning once I've slept on it I'll be writing a nice email to the chap. All polite and thought-out. And then I'll try and spend the afternoon removing paint from the motor...

 

[db]

Pie & Ale, Chambers - there might be clues there...

a chap i know who worked for chambers reckons it was doing fine, they just made a conscious decision to shut-up shop and concentrate on their main operation in shrewbury or wherever it is..

and pie & ale was all very sudden and bizarre, as we know..

i'm with gilbert - i reckon a place with a proper pub atmosphere doing proper pub grub would be brilliant.. somewhere like the greyhound out at burston/sandon..

 

[flossietoo]

a chap i know who worked for chambers reckons it was doing fine, they just made a conscious decision to shut-up shop and concentrate on their main operation in shrewbury or wherever it is..

and pie & ale was all very sudden and bizarre, as we know..

i'm with gilbert - i reckon a place with a proper pub atmosphere doing proper pub grub would be brilliant.. somewhere like the greyhound out at burston/sandon..

I completely agree that a proper pub like the Greyhound would be fab but the impression given at the time certainly was that Chambers was struggling, as evidenced by this Newsletter report:

Inspired by the Stafford Crown Court buildings Chambers had been operating as a traditional pub and eating house. However, it is believed trade had suffered during October.
Mr Blundell continued: "My co director and I are devastated about having to close Chambers but after failed negotiations with the landlord to give us some breathing space after some very poor trading weeks, we were left in no other position but to call in the administrative receivers.
"We have explored every avenue to continue trading and done everything in our powers to safeguard the jobs of our staff."


Read more: http://www.staffordshirenewsletter.co.uk/News/Workers-told-by-text-youve-lost-your-job-10112011.htm#ixzz2jDS7Uljl

 

[tek-monkey]

I really liked Chambers, but I found the staff a bit false. Too smiley, a little over the top, I think too Americanised would be my best description!

 

[ATJ]

The success of The Sun proves that there is a market for a good, proper ale pub in the town centre. The failures all seem to have suffered from at least one of the following: 1) A business plan that alienates local people (eg, charging upmarket prices in a student area) 2) A pub co owner that charges too much rent and 3) personal finance issues with one or more owners.

 

[tek-monkey]

4) crap cider!

 

[Gramaisc]

4) crap cider!

Best we can get, Sir..

 

[John Marwood]

The success of The Sun proves that there is a market for a good, proper ale pub in the town centre. The failures all seem to have suffered from at least one of the following: 1) A business plan that alienates local people (eg, charging upmarket prices in a student area) 2) A pub co owner that charges too much rent and 3) personal finance issues with one or more owners.

Is success just staying open? Did you have access to The Sun's profit/loss figures?

5/ Tight locals

 

[ATJ]

Is success just staying open? Did you have access to The Sun's profit/loss figures?

5/ Tight locals

Alright smartarse, I consider success to be the place rammed full every time I go in. Which The Sun achieves, and The Pie certainly did not.
Anyone who blames tight locals for their business closing down obviously didn't do their market research!

 

[John Marwood]

Alright smartarse, I consider success to be the place rammed full every time I go in. Which The Sun achieves, and The Pie certainly did not.
Anyone who blames tight locals for their business closing down obviously didn't do their market research!

1Ladies have said
2The Sun is wet led
3 Pie/Chambers were dry led and point 5/ applies to this
4Yep

 

[Hixon & MOD Fireworks]

Does anyone recommend the Deshi Khana for a meal?

 

[Withnail]

It's dead.

So probably not.

 

[Glam]

Being done up as we type,knocking the place apart after dark every evening.
They're parking illegally, blockin residents who pay for the permits in.

 

[Andreas Rex]

Being done up as we type,knocking the place apart after dark every evening.
They're parking illegally, blockin residents who pay for the permits in.

The door was open when I walked past earlier...they were putting a small stud wall in front of the doorway, creating a tiny foyer bit. No idea why. When they do construction work in there and you think "Why??", it's usually being done by Raj's workers, and isn't necessarily what the new restaurateurs want.

There's an unprecedented amount of work going on this time. Usually it's just a case of 'let's move this perfectly-decent bar to a totally different area' or something similarly expensive and pointless, but from what I've managed to see so far they seem to be doing a proper job on redesigning the whole place.

I can't be arsed to go and look now, but don't the signs on the windows say something like 'Restaurant to let - ready to open'?? These people have had the keys for a couple of months now and the place was already more than acceptable as an eat-in restaurant...at least until the new year when you've built trade up and made the most of Xmas parties etc. I'm pretty sure the new peeps would have wanted to be open well before now, but then I'd hazard a guess that things are no longer entirely in their control. If they ever were. *cough*