Rumkeg876: Popular rum and cocktail bar in Sheffield set to relocate to former tapas restaurant

Rumkeg876, on Abbeydale Road, is preparing to move a few doors across to the unit formerly occupied by La Mama – which closed in July this year.

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Owner Junior Lewis, who opened Rumkeg876 in 2021, is planning a special closing party for the current venue on its final opening day, Sunday, September 29.

He said: “The plan is to get every customer that comes on the day to bring one item from the bar to the new bar. With that, we’re going to take a photograph of each customer and make a photo collage, then get them to sign it and then we’ll have it in a big massive frame in the new bar.”

Customers moving an item across will join the ‘elite rum club’ and be one of the first to sample future limited editions.

Lewis hopes for the expected re-opening to be “early October,” adding that “most of the work is done”.

“We just need to get everything signed off and ready, and all the legalities and stuff like that,” he said.

“We’re pretty much set in stone over there - there wasn’t much work to do. It’s just about making it a Rumkeg.”

Since opening in 2021, Rumkeg has attracted customers with its range of Caribbean-inspired cocktails and rums from around the world, rum tasting sessions, and bottomless brunches.

For Lewis, opening Rumkeg had been a long time coming.

Having competitively represented Jamaica as a bartender and managing other bars, owning his own bar was “a dream”.

“It’s a passion,” Lewis explained. “Something I used to do for free - both cooking and making cocktails for friends and family. So it was just right that at some point I get rewarded for it and that’s why I started.

“The plan was always to have my normal day job and have a little bar as a little chill out spot to remind myself of being in Jamaica and my little home away from home. It just happens that it [Sheffield] became home.”