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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