Idiots place cafe’s future in jeopardy
LIFE was travelling along nicely for Ellen and Rod Café owner, Peter Tate, over the past year.
His popular café on Ellenborough Street in the CBD had built a strong regular clientele and he had found a dedicated team of six to help him run the business.
On Wednesday morning last week at just after 5am everything changed when a stolen car careered out of control, left the road, and catapulted into the side of his café.
Peter lives just across the road and on hearing the crash ran over to see a car embedded in the café side wall and two offenders running for their lives down the street.
He was rightly stunned as to how a car on a straight stretch of road could end up crashing into the café.
“To have lost control they must have been flying,” he said.
An inspection revealed considerable structural damage to the building and obviously the need for Peter to close his business while he carried out urgent repairs.
He then did what everyone does when they have a misfortune and that was to pull out his insurance policy.
It wasn’t good news.
“I pay $4000 a year in insurance and I never read the fine print to say I wasn’t covered for loss of trade,” Peter said.
“All I can claim for is the equipment and product that I lost and that’s it.”
“The bills will keep flowing in and I want to keep looking after my staff wages, but unfortunately the till will not be ringing.
“Financially this places me in a tough place and all because of two idiots in a stolen car.”
It’s still up in the air when he can trade again, but Peter is doing everything he can to swing open the doors as soon as possible while he still has funds in the bank.
