An indoor market with everything from vintage clothes and antiques to fudge and cakes and a vinyl record stall will be opening at the former JC Rook & Son’s shop in Ramsgate town centre.
Businessman Behrooz Abdolvand has bought the former butcher and pie shops in Ramsgate and Herne Bay to be turned into Hidden Treasures indoor market sites.
The Persian businessman, who now lives in Margate, has made an investment to bring the sites back into use.
Behrooz, who has two children currently studying at universities in Canterbury and Warwick, formerly worked in Iran where his business had the sole contract for laying the gas pipelines.
He has now teamed up with Dave Humphries, who was in the paper industry before retiring and opening an antiques shop in Broadstairs and then Herne Bay.
The pair have been clearing the Ramsgate site, which is spread over four levels, and will host traders goods in display cabinets, stalls and a kitchen and café.
Dad-of-three Dave, from Broadstairs, said: “We will be open seven days a week and hope to open at the end of April or, at the very latest, the first week in May. We have cabinets that people can rent and there will be stalls as well as our own antiques and collectibles.
“There are three large rooms upstairs and we will also have a kitchen and café and will seek permission for chairs and tables out the front.”
Dave, 71, says the shop in Herne Bay will also follow the same format.
To make enquiries about taking space at the indoor market, call Dave on 07717774075.
J C Rook & Sons shops closed in March last year after the firm went into administration.
The firm had been trading in Kent for well over half a century but owed some £2million when it shut, with some 137 people losing their jobs.
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Good luck with the enterprise.
A great shame that Rook’s collapsed.
Great another shop that won’t last long. We don’t need an indoor market that sells antiques and vintage clothed. We need to attract more people to town.
What do you suggest Pam?
I think it will be quite interesting, just the sort of shop I like.
Pam. Get of your arse and go and open something then. Stop slagging of people who are actually investing in the town.
To be fair wasnt there a similar type of affair in harbour street on the right as you walk towards the chippy ?
It was called Celandine Hall in Habour Street.
anything is better than another weatherspoons 😉
Didnt we have a great big indoor market, lets hope this is a success
Thanet is the biggest importers of coffee from Brazil.
Every business in Thanet now has a coffee facility within.
Even dentists!
Although it’s hard not to spill your coffee while getting your tooth drilled.
Not at dentist I use
It sounds like Snoopers in The Lanes in Brighton , big shop over more than one level (always busy) , could bring in a lot of visitors , we have The Emporium by the grange medical practice , but this is in town , hope it does well.
There’s a current boom of interest of people nowadays buying vinyl records ,you’ve only got to visit Gatefield Sounds in Whitstable to see that ,so I wish all the best to this new enterprise selling vinyl records etc
High street Ramsgate is a dive.. Drug shops as pubs.. Its not going to attract with current look.
High streets are no more.
Turn it into a youth club or club.. That will attract
Ramsgate High street is not “a dive”. The ex-Rook’s building isn’t in the High Street.
What does “Drug shops as pubs” mean?
drug shops, aka bong shops, mobile phones , vape shops all rolled into one
What does “drug shops as pubs” mean?
That i have no bloody idea!!
Another 2nd hand bootfair tat shop then really
I think this is promising and it is a great way to start a small business by renting a small stall then if all goes well it expands
Well, at least it is not a derelict site, and being used for something, but for how long is the question, and only time will tell.
It’s very small to be a market,but at least it isn’t another boarded up place. Could have been more inventive. Fish mongers perhaps.
It is much bigger than you realise and that would rule out a fishmonger
I love how some miserable types would prefer stuff to just be nothing than someone try and do a thing. It’s so pathetic! “Our towns have nothing in them…but don’t you dare try and put something in them!!”
Well.. I guess they think they’re full of these drug shops but I think that’s a nonsense made up thing more that owt else..