A Margate café owned by Libertines co-frontman Carl Barat, chef and restaurateur, Gizzi Erskine; partner and Cruel Hearts Club’s’ front woman Edie Langley, and music industry insider Ronnie Traynor, is shut with the lease up for offer.
Love Café, at the old Black Cat site in Marine Gardens, opened in Autumn 2021 but a decision has been made to close the venue.
Ronnie Traynor said: “Love Cafe is permanently closed. We took the decision to shut the doors a few weeks ago.
“We really had some amazing times and it really is an incredible spot with so much potential.
“The lease is now up for sale and we hope to find the right people to take it over and help realise its full potential.”
The lease for the site is being marketed by Miles and Barr and being advertised as “available for £65,000 as a business premium” with a rental of £18,000.
The lease includes all equipment and table and chairs.
The café launched with a promise of being a ‘sandwich bar on steroids’ and attracted a regular crowd. The design was overseen by Rhiannon Sussex, who also designed the interiors at The Albion Rooms which is owned by The Libertines.
Note to DFLs … This is Thanet. Thanet wages if you have a job.
Good honest Thanet folk who in the main don’t want to spend all day looking at art spaces and eating squished squash on toast.
Thanks.
“Good honest Thanet Folk” 😂.
I think you’ve summed it up well , London prices for local folk on minimum wage! More places are going to close with the cost of living squeeze , give me Wetherspoons anyday!
As a person who grew up in thanet I’d like to make a note to anyone thinking of moving here. Locals are extremely negative about progress. If you try something and it doesn’t work they will all say I told you so, but never attempt to break the mould and do anything themselves. They like the plainest of things and the only aspiration mant people have is to be lower middle class. Have a car they can’t afford and a house in an area they think is respectable (not cliftonville). Many people don’t have even have this aspiration.
We are a seaside town that is not really a seaside community. Most people couldn’t really care for it. Their parents moved here for cheap housing rather than an interest of the coast. (Yeah alot of our parents were actually DFLs, which we all forget).
There is little imagination. Startups are rare or maybe non existent. There is a very hostile atmosphere amongst the young male population in establishments that are filled with local thanet born residents. Coke seems to risen hugely in the last 15 years. Most can’t afford it
But the area has potential and hopefully over time people will broaden their minds
I never touch Coke, just the occasional Diet Pepsi.
Hilarious
and another one bites the dust !
I visited once but I was not impressed with the prices!
I prefer the Cafe Darcy opposite
Happy restaurant cliftonville. £6.80 For a proper roast dinner.
Its was a cafe! I see that a few times a week from a distance but never drove past it. I assumed it was a nail salon, or something to do with beauty.
Inside looks ok but exterior design is awful, and in an awful area for that kind place. Maybe nearer the gallery it might have worked. Seems like they read a few articles about Margate being ‘up and coming’ and ‘cool’ and the rest of the nonsense written, and thought they could cash in.
Agreed.
It has had a number of incarnations since the Archilles Heel – none of which seem to have great longevity. It has never been clear from the outside whether it was a pub, cafe, ice cream parlour, nail bar, art gallery, night club or knocking shop !
Hopefully the next operators will give us some clarity as to the nature of the business.
I too wasn’t even aware it was a cafe, as the sign above says “Bar” and “Music”! Amateurs.
I find the whole arty Margate thing and the array of overpriced places to eat or shop it’s brought with it a bit ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ really. Eventually Natasha and Crispin will get bored, find some other town with aspirations to be the new Brighton and we’ll be left with loads of empty premises and more unemployment. I’m not discouraging new businesses, but would prefer they were ventures which benefit the local community who, as someone has already said, don’t earn London prices.
I remember the TV chef, John Burton-Race, opening up a restaurant at Harvey’s, Ramsgate harbour , a few years ago.
I went there a couple of times, the food was superb but the prices were not for Thanet at all. It soon closed down, about a year if memory serves.
When will ‘London types’ ( for want of a description) realise that the many of Thanet people are either on minimum wages or unemployed, the rest receiving far less than those who work in the Capital.
Like his methods or not but Tim what’s-his-name has it exactly right with his Wetherspoons, a pint and a meal for around a tenner and his venues are well patronised. The food is not bad at all, either.
The likes of Love Cafe are always going to struggle down here unless The Turner crowd decide to support these businesses , not that those who work there will be earning London wages either.
Get real people, research the area very carefully, then open another Wetherspoons!😁😁
If it’s decent, then it will survive. Buoy and Oyster in Margate is a good example: though a tad overrated in my opinion, they charge a small fortune for average sized portions, yet are always busy.
I love on London but regularly visit Margate. Went there once as Darcy was packed. Would never have gone again; expensive (despite using own brand 69p ketchup) and slow! Staff were lovely though which is a great shame for them so close to Christmas.
Also hilarious, thanet prices, what 900 quid for a two bedroom house? And you’re crying about 7 quid for a decent hot sandwich
Perhaps musicians should stick to music instead of catering?
I visited a few times, thought it was great. Very busy when I was there too.
witherspoons – is that where you get a complimentary mousetrap with your order ??
DFL (or not brought up in Thanet) does not translate as – ‘I am here to take all your jobs and housing’. I’m proud that we enjoy high quality venues, whilst also having great value options too. As a local business owner and outsider to the area, I’ll shake the hand of anyone who is trying to improve their life outcomes and the area that they live in, plus create jobs. Sorry to lose you Love Café.
All very nice, but be honest, how often did you actually eat/drink there? Real life isn’t like Facebook, where you can “like” something but not actually support it in the real sense.
Well said Peter!
We often have Sunday breakfast at the Mechanical Elephant (Wetherspoons), at around 10 a.m. and would walk past Love Cafe, which only seemed to be getting ready to open at that time of day.
On the way back from ‘Spoons where a full English costs from.£4.60 including “bottomless” (good) coffee or tea, we’d see some customers in Love Cafe, sometimes with a couple of children, and wonder how they could afford a full English at around £9.50,?
When I feel like splashing out on coffee and a snack I gauge the quality of such things by the decor and thought I was good at that. You really can tell when you get your eye in. But this place … I’ve passed it so many times and assumed the fare on offer was pretty grotty.
I’m available to advise The Libertines on how their next venture should look. My fees are astronomical so I should fit right in.
Show LOVE some Love FFS ❤️ I loved *LOVE* for a passing Cappachino (with oat milk and honey at non extras) which was a quid cheaper than the cafe by the beach. MOREOVER THE STAFF + EDIE WERE/ARE LOVELY AND WERE GOOD AMBASSADORS OF LOVE ❤️ Thanks for their constant kindness. (Plus I witnessed look after the local passing poor giving them free cups of tea with the chance to get warm – you wouldn’t get that from Costa who charge nearly £4 for a cappachoochhoo without such local hearted kindness.)
Well Therese, I’m called Natasha and lived here since February. Thank God me and my dog appreciate our beach walks so much because energy like a lot of the hostile messages by humans would keep me well away! THANK GOD FOR NATURE. 🪲🌊🌞
God help the Olympia cafe with attitudes like this!!!!! Plus the fact that Coke is on the rise here indicates a level of irony when looking at the level of vitriol a sweet cafe has harnessed. MISERABLE B*STARDS WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO.
(All I knows that the only dog friendly cafe that would have let my dog in on sub-zero days has gone.)
The owners couldn’t care less about the residents living on top of their establishment. Loud music and parties every weekend and often past their license allowed. Their overpriced food wasn’t going to keep them afloat and after being reported and probably fined by the council for noise pollution, it took less than a month to shut down. Good riddance.