WHAT better time to reopen a regally named bistro than at the start of a jubilee? That’s what café and restaurant owner Andrew Hooper thought when he relaunched the 9 Kings Bistro, in Barnard Castle, on Thursday.
The 26-seat eatery, off the Galgate car park, originally opened in 1999 but has been mothballed for the past 14 years, with Mr Hooper and his staff concentrating on daytime trade at the Teesdale Café and Restaurant on the ground floor. He said: “When we closed it in 2008 it was because of the financial crash, but we have been talking about reopening for some time and we felt the time was right now.
“We have a new chef and we have come up with a new menu concentrating on English and European cuisine.”
Ensuring customers will get a taste of the dales, suppliers have been kept local. All the cheeses are being supplied by Copley-based Teesdale Cheesemakers and meat will be coming courtesy of McFarlane’s Butchers, in Horsemarket.
The 9 Kings Bistro will initially be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings between 6.30pm until 9.30pm.
Mr Hooper added: “When we first opened, the name did cause a bit of confusion, as people wondered what the connection to kings was.
“We actually ran a competition to come up with the name and the winning entrant just rearranged our address, even though we look out onto the car park.”
