Rigatoni’s is to close its Ancoats restaurant, owners have confirmed.
The last day of service will be this Saturday (25 May), with the ‘brutal’ conditions facing the hospitality industry being cited as the reason for the decision.
“I know you all must be sick of the sight of yet another announcement from us, and I can definitely understand why,” owners said in a post to Instagram.
“The last 12 months (and even going back to covid) have been brutal to say the least. We’ve been on a constant mission to try to make our restaurants sustainable – for us, for our customers, and for our staff, in what has felt like a massive uphill battle, in the midst of conditions that obviously have not been unique to us.
“The latest attempt to do this was in the guise of going all out to create a more affordable, accessible, but still quality product that could be replicated across many sites. I/we now have to accept that we have failed in this mission.
“The hardest part is that we have failed not just ourselves, but more importantly our customers and our staff, and for this we are truly sorry.
“What this means is that unfortunately our Ancoats restaurant will be closing this week, with the last day of service being Saturday the 25th May.
“We’ve an incredible and talented team of people there, who I know will go on from us to do great things – a huge thank you to them for doing there absolute all in trying to make work whatever we have put before them.”
It comes in the wake of a tumultuous few months for the Italian restaurant brand, which rebranded from its former name Sud – which itself had been a rebrand from its previous name, Sugo.
Founded by brothers Mike and Alex de Martiis, they opened their first restaurant in Altrincham in 2015, followed by the Ancoats site, a site in Sale and a kitchen in the Exhibition food hall.
The Sale restaurant closed in February, while they pulled out of Exhibition in March.
Amid all this, the brothers decided to change the brand’s name to Sud from its original name Sugo, after a legal dispute with a restaurant of the same name in Glasgow.
They rebranded as Rigatoni’s last year.
The Altrincham branch will remain open, with the brothers adding:
“After the journey of the last few years, we’ve really spent time recently considering what the most important values were to us that we held closest when we first started out.
“Quite honestly it was simply to create unique, high quality southern Italian inspired dishes, with a small, deeply passionate and committed team, that cannot be found elsewhere. And this is what we want to breathe back into our Altrincham restaurant – to give you a product and a service that you and us can be proud of.
“We’re not going to be trying to compete with anyone else – we will simply endeavour night and day to be the best possible version of ourselves that we can be, offering a unique experience that will only be found in the walls of our small Altrincham restaurant.
“To give you a feel for what I’m talking about – we’ll be bringing back our Pugliese crockery / the small, ever changing and considered menu will be scrawled all over our chalkboard / deliveroo will no longer be a part of what we do / we’ll be committed to the principle of offering nothing ‘standard’.
“Oh, and our Dad is coming up to help us make this happen! We won’t be changing our name (we’ve done this way too many times plus we want to focus all our attention on delivering the above), but I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that the red will be going! This mission begins in Altrincham from 5pm on Wednesday the 5th June. Until then we will run a normal service.”
