Cardiff favourite Dusty's Pizza is set to open a new venue in the capital months after being forced to close their flagship branch due to soaring costs and huge losses incurred during the pandemic. The popular pizzeria shut with immediate effect in December with its owners, husband and wife Deb and Phill Lewis, describing the closure as "heartbreaking".
However, as they announced their decision to close their branch in The Bone Yard in Canton, the couple remained hopeful that the business would return "in the not so distant future in some form". Just three months on, plans for a new home for Dusty's in Llanishen have now been approved.
The new venue will open on the site of a former shop on Llangranog Road after an application to convert the ground floor of the currently vacant space into a food and drink unit was given the go-ahead by Cardiff council.
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Last year, Dusty's closed two of its three sites, with its venue at Goodsheds in Barry also shutting down in August due to rising costs and "a significant lack of skilled labour, haphazard availability and under performance". Their third branch at Founders & Co in Swansea is still running.
In December, Deb and Phill, who are also behind Cardiff restaurants Nook and Kindle, confirmed that they were shutting their site at The Boneyard. In a statement shared on social media, the couple said they had "battled hard" to keep their venues going but had slowly been "encumbered with debt".
"With immense sadness Phill and I must announce the immediate closure of Dusty’s Pizza at our Papermill Road location, otherwise known as The Boneyard," they wrote. "Us, like so many others, have suffered significant losses as a result of the pandemic in 2019 and whilst we have battled hard to retain our sites one by one they have fallen foul to rising costs, have become encumbered with debt as a result of the last few years without adequate room for their recovery.
"We are incredibly grateful to those that have supported us in all our endeavours, watched our journey not only as an independent business over the last eight years but also as a family. Dusty’s truly holds a very special place in our heart and I hope in yours, for whatever it has meant to you.
"We are hopeful that Dusty’s will make a return in the not so distant future in some form but for now we must be courageously quiet and navigate this heartbreaking time," they added. A special thanks to our team members over the years, our incredible suppliers, to those that saw something in us all those years ago and gave us creative room, to those that leant us screwdrivers, wrenches, shipping containers and everything in between. Thank you doesn’t quite cover it! We really did give it our all."
The new venue will be the next step in what has been an eventful journey for Deb, Phill and Dusty's, which started life in the back of a van in 2014. You can read more about the pizzeria here.
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