Jaflong Crookes: Popular 25-year-old Sheffield restaurant boarded up after landlord repossess building

The Jaflong restaurant has been running in Crookes for 25 years, and has been in its current location for a decade. But metal sheets have been placed on all the windows and doors after the building was repossessed.

The lease on the building had ended, and restaurant boss Shahab Uddin had hoped to arrange a deal to stay at the same building. The restaurant has been operating there on a sub-lease arrangement through previous tenant Coral, but Coral’s lease ended, and the building was due to be returned to its owner, Motspa Holdings.

Jaflong today has placed a notice on its website stating that it is temporarily closed until further notice.

It stated: “Due to the end of the lease at our current premises, we are currently closed until further notice. We will be moving to a new premises in the near future with a bigger and better Jaflong experience.”

Mr Uddin told The Star last week that if Jaflong was forced to leave the building, it would relocate to a new site within two kilometres of their previous base.

Two notices were placed on the building today. One was headed ‘notice of peaceful re-entry’.

It stated that Ladbrokes Betting and Gaming Limited had re-entered the premises and was entitled to do so. It added any attempt to enter the building without Ladbrokes permission may be liable to civil or criminal proceedings.

A second notice, from an organisation describing itself as Equivo Limited, said they had been instructed by the building’s owners, Motspa Holdings, ordering the business to remove anything it owned from the premises by May 9.

A spokesman for Motspa said last week that Coral’s lease had ended, and therefore so had Jaflong’s lease. He said the lease was due to drop back to Motspa, who plan to completely refurbish the building, although they had not yet been able to get in to do a complete survey.

It is not known what the company’s plans are for the building. It has previously been a bookies and a video rental shop.