Walk along Lower Richmond Road this month and part of it feels like recovery: two shut shops have reopened.
Fried chicken shop The Grill Heist, which already has branches in Forest Gate and Bexleyheath, has taken the unit where Persian Grill House went under and a repossession notice went up last winter.
TaxAssist Accountants is moving into the office Glenthorne Properties left empty at 135 – “wet paint” signs still up in the window – after last summer’s takeover by Lomond/KFH. The new franchisee, Beyant Khosti, is moving in and extending an eight-year existing practice to Putney.
A few doors down however, at 151, a forfeiture notice posted in the window of the dry cleaners states that the landlord’s agents “have this day re-entered these premises and the lease is hereby determined.” A second office notice beside it, told the outgoing tenant to collect what was left behind. Tragically, the colourful centrepiece is still there. The agent has already begun marketing the unit to let.
Further along, one unit is never coming back as a shop. At 129, a bid for four flats was refused by the council last year as too much for the site. Through multiple planning applications, one finally stuck: a scaled-back version comprising one two-bedroom flat and one one-bedroom flat. While most flats on Lower Richmond Road sit above the shop, this one’s frontage is the living room – with shutters.
The sharpest sign of the see-sawing recovery though is Raaz.
Has Raaz shut?
The modern Indian restaurant whose launch last September drew Michelin-star ambitions and a run of glowing reviews has been closed for some time.
A printed notice in the window blamed a water leak from the flat above. An update posted on Raaz’s website tells a longer story: a burst pipe in the unit above caused “a major flood,” repairs were expected to take three to four weeks, with a reopening hoped for “mid to end of July”. It is now 29 July.
The company behind it, Soiree Hospitality Group UK Limited, is not in good standing at Companies House. A First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off was filed against it in March and suspended in May, but the confirmation statement that triggered the action still has not been filed, seven months after it fell due. Sole director Manish Mallick is based in the United States.
It would not be the first change at Raaz. Founding chef Imran Mansuri, whose CV anchored the launch, left after six months and it never seemed to recover; the kitchen has been run by chef Kuldeep Mattegunta since March. This could be the end of what had promised to be a cuilinary gem: a mantel that has now passed to Ruth’s on the opposite corner.
It’s nowhere as bad as the High Street but Lower Richmond Road continues to have its struggles. The traffic doesn’t help.
