The extra costs on employers can't have helped but, if memory serves, the Italians had previously shut for periods over the last few years due to lack of staff.
What should be happening is that there is adjustment in rents to offset rising costs for tenants. The Italians lease was up in a few months and they must have been speaking to the landlord but couldn't come to an agreement. Vacant units at this end of the High Road seem to fill up although experience so far suggests we are going to get a kitchen/bathroom showroom or a furniture store. The proximity to free parking at Sainsbury's seems to be attracting loads of them at the moment.
For those of us who are mourning The Italians perhaps this theory will assuage the guilt we feel about not going more often when we had the chance. Even if we had bought more coffee and it hadn't been hit by higher costs, it may have already been doomed. |