Blackpool restaurant will not reopen as a Las Iguanas

The Las Iguanas restaurant on the Promenade which is now closed

The South America themed Las Iguanas restaurant on the corner of Church Street and the Promenade opened to great fanfare in November 2015.

But it and the Bella Italia on Victoria Street shut their doors in July as owner the Casual Dining Company was put into administration citing difficult trading and the coronavirus lockdown for its failure.

A new company, The Big Table, was set up to get the Las Iguanas, Bella Italia and Café Rouge restaurant businesses back open in August, backed by private equity firm Epiris.

Inside the restaurant which underwent a £1m refit when it first opened

The company retained CDG’s existing management team

But The Big Table said today that while the Bella Italia has reopened its doors, the Las Iguanas site was not included in the deal which saw most of the restaurant sites bought by the new company.

This leaves the 6,000sq ft site on the Promenade, which used to be a Burger King, in limbo until a new operator decides to make a move for it.

The restaurant created 50 jobs when it opened and had to first fend off demands from the police to have door staff which came from worries about adding to the resort’s booze offer.

It cost £1m to revamp the building including creating a new frontage.

Las Iguanas launched in Bristol in 1991 and grew steadily until the casual dining market became saturated in recent years and several high profile names hit trouble with falling customer numbers and had to close venues.

The deal saw The Big Table save around 4,000 jobs up and down the country and more than 150 restaurants.

The administration was carried out by AlixPartners. Clare Kennedy form the group said at the time: “We received a significant level of interest in the group which is a testament to the strength of its management team, the affection in which its brands are held by the public and the quality of its people.”

A spokesman for Big Table said: “Most of the restaurants previously operated by Casual Dining Group were bought by a new business called Big Table Group, in August, and while this did include the Bella Italia on Victoria Street, which has now reopened, it did not unfortunately include the Las Iguanas on the promenade.”