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28
May
Council issues update on tenancy at Harrogate’s former Wicked Wolf bar
The prospect of revival at what was The Wicked Wolf in Harrogate is no more as the council has officially ended the lease at the former bar.
The Montpellier Gardens venue, which is part of the North Yorkshire Council-owned Royal Baths complex, was one of a flurry of new venues that opened in the town around Christmas 2024.
Its opening marked a new lease of life for a building that had long been redundant, and the bar’s owner promised at the time to “continue investing in Harrogate”.
But just four months later, in April 2025, operations ground to a halt and the circumstances surrounding the sudden closure have since remained a mystery.
The council last year said the tenancy hadn't ended, but otherwise remained tight-lipped on the situation, despite the Stray Ferret repeatedly asking for updates.
Now more than a year on, we asked for another update on the tenancy, including to ask if the operator of The Wicked Wolf was still the tenant at the site.
In a brief statement, the council told us:
The council has ended the lease of the Wicked Wolf unit, which will now be available to re-let.
A North Yorkshire Council property officer last year told the Stray Ferret the initial rent payable by the Wicked Wolf tenant started at £60,000, rising to £120,000 “following a phased stepped increase”, plus an additional service charge of £44,905.31.
However, as the council stayed tight-lipped on the status of the tenancy for months, it’s unclear how much the tenant behind The Wicked Wolf paid to the council before closing and if it continued to pay rent and service charge afterwards.
Bookings were cancelled in April 2025 but the bar never reopened again.
Background
At the time, The Wicked Wolf said it shut after experiencing “major issues” with its kitchen, which it claimed couldn’t be resolved "at present".
The bar told customers it hoped to be "back serving you soon", but is has never publicly addressed the closure, nor has it ever suggested it could return to the town.
The Stray Ferret has made several attempts to contact The Wicked Wolf since it closed, including for comment on this story, but we have not received responses to any of our enquiries.
Although the unit has been empty for some time, the termination of the lease means three out of the five Royal Baths units are officially vacant.
The former Tourist Information Centre has stood empty since 2024 when the service relocated to The Royal Pump Room Museum, and the former Viper Rooms has remained unchanged since it was repossessed in December 2022.
North Yorkshire Council bought the grade-two listed building in 2018 for £9.5 million to bolster its commercial portfolio.
Branded the authority’s “under-performing trophy asset” just three years later, the Royal Baths has since been dogged by poor investment returns and plummeting value.
The Stray Ferret in March revealed the Royal Baths is now worth £6.3 million, falling £3.2 million in eight years.
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