‘We greatly appreciated your custom’
What’s Your Beef has closed one of its burger stalls with immediate effect(Image: What’s Your Beef)
A popular burger joint has announced it has closed one of its locations at a Greater Manchester food hall less than a year after opening.
What’s Your Beef, which sells gourmet burgers using ‘exceptional’ Lancashire beef at a number of locations across the city-region and beyond, has announced it has closed its stall at Bolton Food Hall with immediate effect.
The food hall, situated next to Bolton Market, only opened its doors in June last year with What’s Your Beef being one of its original traders, alongside a host of other local and independent eateries. The food hall formed part of a huge £5.5m transformation of Bolton town centre by Bolton Council.
The owners of What’s Your Beef said the decision had been made due to a number of ‘unfavourable conditions’, including the higher cost of sourcing ingredients and the pending National Insurance (NI) increases, which will officially come into effect on April 6.
Announced in the Autumn Budget, the Government said that employers will face a National NI rate increase from 13.8% to 15%, as well as a lower threshold for NI payments, which will decrease from £9,100 to £5,000. Hospitality bosses have previously said that business owners were ‘facing a really big headwind of costs’ following the changes.
What’s Your Beef founders Eddie Pope and Neil Standring, pictured in 2020(Image: Dave Cowan – Staff)
Posting on Instagram on Monday afternoon (March 31), What’s Your Beef owners said: “Unfortunately, WYB (What’s Your Beef) Bolton is no longer trading at Bolton Market Food Hall, from today.
“Sadly, due to unfavourable conditions like the rising cost of raw ingredients, utility charges and pending NI increases led us to this very difficult decision.
“We would like to thank Bolton Council for giving us this opportunity who have supported us through this very difficult period. Thank you to all our customers who supported us, we greatly appreciated your custom.
What’s Your Beef will still have its unit at Kargo.MKT in Quayside, in Salford Quays. The street food venture started life by Rochdale pals Neil Standring and Eddie Pope in 2014 with a stall at Levenshulme Market. It has since gone on to win praise for its offerings.
The food hall is based within Bolton Market(Image: Bolton Council)
In 2019, their ‘Stateside Deluxe’ burger was named as a finalist in the 2019 National Burger Awards, making it into the top five of a list selecting the best burgers in the country.
The news of the closure of their Bolton stall has been met with a mixture of sadness and understanding from local customers and businesses. “Sad times”, one customer responded to their Instagram post.
Another said: “So sorry to hear this, pals. Always got big respect for you.” One other said: “Such a sad, but incredibly common, state of affairs. So sorry it’s come to that.”