Staff have spoken of their devastation after losing their jobs when a Beeston restaurant suddenly closed. Ottimo, a 150-seater Italian restaurant, shut with immediate effect without warning just weeks before Christmas.
Workers were told the bombshell news that an investor had pulled out when they turned up for their shift on November 30. The restaurant had been open for just seven months. The first food and drink venture to open beneath the Arc Cinema at the town's £50m Beeston Square development, it served pasta, pizza and Sunday roasts.
They said the restaurant seemed busy and was earning good reviews so the turn of events came as a huge shock. One of the chefs, who asked not to be named, said: "We had no idea this was going to happen. The place was doing very well. I went in to do my shift and one of the directors, who doesn't normally come in, was there and he told us we had all lost our jobs.
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"He said [an investor] had pulled out. I'm angry about how we've been treated. Everyone has been left in the dark. We've had no communication since the day it closed. It was an amazing job, I loved it, best place I've worked. It was a great job and I was working with some great people."
The chef claimed staff are owed 11 days' pay and they're not sure if they are entitled to redundancy and holiday pay. "They've not filed for liquidation so none of us can take it to ACAS to get our money back."
The man said the timing, just before Christmas, couldn't have been worse. "I am in a fortunate position where I'm living with my missus' parents but everyone else I have kept in contact with have really struggled over Christmas.
"It came three weeks before Christmas and my girlfriend's birthday is just two days before Christmas so it ruined all of that. I couldn't afford to get my mum anything."
The man, who lives close to Ottimo, has found another job at a city centre restaurant. "It's not as convenient, there's a lot of travelling to and from work. I'm doing 14-hour shifts, setting out at 8am and not getting back until about midnight."
Another worker, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said: "My financial situation is a mess now. I have not had a wage paid to me since November 30 and my new job pay day is February 5. This is putting me in debt. There is zero consideration for the staff or anyone affiliated with Ottimo.
"I've had to take a loan out to tide me over. The way we have been treated is really poor. Everyone is so sad about it. I loved the job, and so did the staff that worked there."
A third employee, who asked not to be named, said: "When we were told we didn't have a job it came out of nowhere, there was no sign it was coming, no build up and no explanation, I know a lot of us feel completely under represented and abandoned during the most expensive time of the year.
"It put me in a position where I've had to borrow money to make the rent and bills this month. Luckily I have a strong support network - without them it would have been a lot worse."
Ottimo was the third venue for the duo behind Nottingham's Sans Patrie and Bar Sans Patrie, Ross Considine and Nick Parker. They first ventured into the hospitality sector in 2020 when Sans Patrie opened in Alfreton Road.
Bar Sans Patrie, beneath the Hylyf apartments, Plumptre Square, in Nottingham, closed last year as it turned out not to be the right fit for the location. Sans Patrie, meanwhile, is "doing great but it's taken a lot of slogging and hard work," said Mr Considine.
He said he learnt Ottimo's investor had pulled the plug the day before he broke the news to staff. "It's the worst thing in the world we had to lay people off in December but I never wanted to do that. I personally went and saw the people and told them face-to face the day after I found it was happening. I didn't do anything by email or phone call. I was heartbroken at that time."
He said they'd had to prop the business up by putting in £25,000 in October and November to cover the wages. "You just can't keep doing that. We have paid all the wages. We are now in a legal process - we haven't got any access to the bank account until the contracts are signed to take the next step and the next step hasn't been decided as it's a third party that decides so we are supposed to find that out next week.
"It's not us not paying people - there was no money left in the account - I think there was 46p at the end of the wages. At that point when you end the business and you're wrapping it up and it goes into the legals you can't all of a sudden start changing things. It's a legal process.
"The bottom line is the investor [pulled out] and it just wasn't working as well as it should have done for lots of reasons I guess - the market wasn't there, it was a tough time for hospitality.
"There is a legal negotiation going on that we can't get involved in. Liquidation is not necessary a 100 percent a path we have to go down - it's up to our solicitors and that's being negotiated as we speak. We're doing everything we should do legally - no one has been short-changed.
"We have done nothing wrong. The legal process is when a business closes, the staff within a certain period of time, two to three months, get given details to make claims to the government so they can claim their wages and and whatever else they need to claim because the business has been wound up."
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