The Zanzibar coffee shop and restaurant in Plaça Navegació in the heart of Santa Catalina is closing its doors this Sunday putting 7 people out of work.
The new terrace law for restaurants and bars, which was introduced in May, forced Joan Pujol and his father Esteban to remove 6 tables from outside their restaurant and another 17 inside and as a result takings slumped by a whopping 38%.
"Those six tables were important,” Joan explains, “because they were always occupied and when there’s a good atmosphere on the terrace people are encouraged to come into the restaurant, and that helped the business a lot.”
The family was planning to modernise the restaurant and had applied for permission to renovate the restaurant terrace, but decided to close down after the new regulations were approved and will now concentrate on their other businesses in Cala d'Or and Porto Colom.
There’s still a few years left on the Zanzibar contract and the premises are available for rent, although Joan says he’s still considering taking it back to its roots and reopening as a bar at some time in the future.
The restaurant will be open as usual this Sunday and Esteban says there will be no goodbyes, just thanks for the custom they’ve enjoyed over the years. "We are grateful to each person who passed through the restaurant and enjoyed it,” he says.
The Zanzibar opened in 2000 and the owners estimate that more than a million customers have visited the premises over the years.