NEW RESTAURANT IS A BOOST FOR TOWN
IN A town that has been deserted by a large number of national chain retailers, local and independent businesses continue in their quest to save the day as we continue to emerge from the disaster of coronavirus.
Carmarthen has been hit as hard as any Welsh town in the past 18 months, with several high street brands either seeing the storm on the horizon or being blown away by it when it hit.
Since March 2020, big names – meant to pull people into the town from elsewhere – have gone, including Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, River Island, Fat Face, and Monsoon. Game has also closed, as has Burger King, meaning more and more empty spaces lining the streets and shopping centres. The biggest shop in the town, Debenhams, closed in May after more than a decade as the flagship store of the St Catherine’s Walk shopping centre.
Efforts are being made to rectify the problem. Local independent business owners are being given the opportunity to relocate to bigger and more prominent locations, something that would not have been possible pre-Covid, while just last week Carmarthenshire Council announced plans to fill the Topshop unit in St Catherine’s Walk with a pop-up store full of local businesses for two weeks in August.
So there is a hope that the future is bright, that the future is independent.
King Street, in the centre of town, has always had a certain aura. There are hardly any chain stores here, just quirky and local shops and businesses. But, everything has a knockon effect, and the emptying of highstreet units in one spot creates a problem in another.
King Street has its charms, but charm only takes you so far. You need shops and restaurants, and you need them to be busy. It seems the historic street is at something of a tipping point: some shops have closed, some have moved, and the day-time pedestrianisation of the street remains, to say the least, controversial.
That’s for another day. For now, there are units to be filled.
One that has is the former Me & Luce women’s clothing store - which has since relocated to St Catherine’s Walk in the space vacated by River Island. In its place, as of next Friday, will be Ty Tân – a new restaurant focusing on “back to basics” cooking. Meat and fire, with cocktails.
It’s the brainchild of Chris Hardie, a chef originally from Manchester who relocated more than six years ago to start a new life in West Wales with his fiancé.
Chris is obsessed with cooking, and he’s obsessed with opening his new restaurant. To begin with he will open between Wednesday and Saturday with space for 32 guests at one time.
The plan is to open upstairs in the coming months which will almost double the number of diners he can accommodate, while next summer he wants to open up the garden at the rear of the restaurant. He wants Ty Tân to be more than just somewhere people come for a quick bit to eat.
“We don’t want people to just eat their food and then we move them on,” he said. “We want them to stay. We’ll have music and cocktails and we want people to come here and enjoy themselves. I want this place to be a destination.”
Ty Tân opens its doors for the first time next Friday, and if Chris’s passion for his new venture is anything to go by, it will quickly become one of the go-to places to dine in Carmarthen and a staple of the town’s nightlife.
“I’m obsessed with everything I do here,” he said. “We’ve designed the layout in such a way that we’ll have an open kitchen - that way there’s be a bit of theatre to it.
“People will be able to see the fire and see us cooking. You don’t get that in many places but I think it will add to the dining experience, and every plate that leaves the chef’s area has to be perfect.
“I don’t want to own 50 restaurants, I want to own one restaurant and I want it to be the best.”