A popular pizza restaurant has confirmed it will close its doors for good, prompting fans to launch a petition to save it. The owners of Croma on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury confirmed the news in a statement and said the last service would be on Wednesday, May 10.
In the statement, owners said it was with a "heavy heart" that the Didsbury branch of the popular pizza restaurant would be closing, but added it wanted to make "good use" of the time left and would be issuing anyone who dines at the restaurant in Didsbury with a loyalty card to be redeemed at its remaining sites.
Last year, Croma's flagship city centre restaurant shuttered after 22 years, leading to 28 staff members being made redundant. It was the first of the chain's four restaurants to open back in 2000, and was tucked behind Albert Square. The chain still operates two other sites in Chorlton and Prestwich.
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In a statement provided to the Manchester Evening News, a spokesperson for Croma said: "It is with heavy heart we must announce that our restaurant in Didsbury will close its doors on Wednesday 10th May 2023 when our lease expires.
"We’re determined to put what time we have left to good use and we of course want to invite each and every one of our lovely and loyal customers to visit and dine with us before the final curtain comes down in Didsbury.
"We know you’re all head over heels in love with our gourmet pizzas, oven baked dishes of loveliness and, of course, our wonderful staff who have looked after you for the last 9 years. To ensure the love affair continues we’ll be treating everyone who dines at our restaurant in Didsbury before we close to generously stamped loyalty cards redeemable at our Chorlton and Prestwich restaurants (which aren’t going anywhere by the way!) once our Didsbury pizza ovens are sadly retired.
"Of course, it goes without saying, we plan to throw one heck of a leaving party and you’re all invited! Be sure to keep your eyes on our social media for more updates.
"Didsbury, thank you, we've loved being part of the community and we can’t wait to welcome you all soon in Prestwich and Chorlton where you'll see some familiar faces! Love Team Croma Didsbury."
In a bid to save the restaurant, a petition has also been launched by one of Croma's customers, which is asking people to sign it so they can 'approach the landlord and see what options are available'. The petition created on Change.org describes how walking into Croma, was like "walking into a big family home", and that the staff "have become more than friends to the Didsbury community".
The author of the post added: "We simply can’t lose Croma from our Didsbury community, it’s too important to too many people. Nearly every person in this brilliant village will have a happy memory of being in Croma, and we want our community to be able to keep making new ones in a place that has worked so hard, survived lockdown and still manages to attract hundreds of bookings a week.
"We ask that you sign this petition so that we can approach the landlord and see what options there are available. Please - with everything getting so much harder with our economy, keeping places like Croma open is more important than ever."
Croma's city centre site closed last January after co-founder Andrew Bullock said they did not "have the clout with the landlords, or the balance sheet that large companies have". Speaking to the Manchester Evening News at the time, he said that the low footfall in the city centre over Christmas 2021, and increasing numbers of office staff now working from home due to the pandemic, all contributed to the site becoming financially inviable.
He added: "We just couldn’t cover the costs, and we couldn’t see a financial future. You don’t need to be an accountant to see that there weren’t the number of people coming in on a Friday evening or a Tuesday lunchtime."
The chain was set up by co-founders Bullock and Bob Dunn, after they left the Pizza Express franchise they were running on South King Street to set up on their own, bringing with them many staff who still work for the company today.
As well as its sites in Didsbury, Prestwich and Chorlton, the chain also ran the Croma Pizzapoint franchises at Odeon cinemas including one at the Trafford Centre, and other sites in Edinburgh, Tunbridge Wells and Loughborough. However, those closed too at the beginning of 2021, as the cinema group was shuttered due to the second nationwide lockdown.
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