Winemaker closes its London bar

Wine producer Chapel Down has closed its Gin Works in London just a year after it opened.

It comes three months after the restaurant at the site in King’s Cross was closed in October.

The Gin Works originally featured a micro-distillery, bar and restaurant.

The closure comes after the Tenterden-based firm admitted it was unable make the outlet profitable.

CEO Frazer Thompson told the Kentish Express: “Unfortunately, although we created a great team and gave people fantastic experiences at the Gin Works, we just couldn’t get enough people to go there to make it profitable.

“So rather than continue we made the difficult decision to close it.

“These things happen, that’s unfortunate, but everything else is performing extremely well.

It comes just weeks after Gareth Bath, managing director of its beers and cider division, announced he was leaving the company.

In September, the company revealed year-on-year combined sales soared by 21% to £6.74m but on-going major investments, most notably in its Curious Brewery site in Victoria Road, Ashford, in the six months up to June 30, 2019, saw losses rise to £1.7m.

It lost just over £546,000 over the same period the year before.

It put the losses down to a “conscious decision to continue investing ahead in our people, our systems and our brands”.

The £1.7m Curious Brewery was finally opened, after a two month delay, last May.

Mr Thompson added: “The brewery is a fantastic operation and lots of people are going there, even in January, and Tenterden is also performing extremely well.

“You make sensible business decisions every now and again, but sometimes they’re not great. But everything else is going really well.”

Chapel Down has vineyards across Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex.

Last year, the company began planting on England’s largest single vineyard, a 338-acre site in Boarley, near Maidstone.