Plans to build an extension at the back of the former Ali Raj restaurant on Cheltenham Crescent have been approved by Harrogate Borough Council.

The plans were submitted by the owners of the building, who also own the pub downstairs, The Little Ale House.

Richard Park and his wife Danni opened The Little Ale House in 2016 to recreate a rustic country pub atmosphere in the town centre.

The Ali Raj was a longstanding Indian and Bangladeshi restaurant in Harrogate that closed in 2021. It was the first Bangladeshi restaurant in town when it opened more than 35 years ago.

A change of use application was approved in February to turn the restaurant into a bar.

The latest plans will create improved back-of-house and toilet facilities and a roof terrace to increase seating capacity.

Mr Park told the Stray Ferret that building work is set to begin next summer when he will say which business will use the space.

He stressed the new venue will not be an extension of the Little Ale House, which will remain a separate business downstairs.

A CGI image of how the extension will look

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A Harrogate restaurant inspired by fashion styles and food trends from around the world has reopened.

Fashion House, which was previously called Fashion House Bistro, has undergone a major refurbishment.

The restaurant on Swan Road is the concept of fashion photographer David Dresser and Leeds-based businessman Joel Feldman.

The kitchen will be run by Peruvian head chef Erika Ramos, who will be serving up dishes from her home country with an Italian twist.

Fashion House hosted a garden party to celebrate reopening this week.

A spokesperson for the restaurant said:

“From London to LA, Italy to Barcelona, this new restaurant has taken inspiration from fashion styles and food trends across the globe and streamlined it together to create Fashion House in Harrogate.”

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Asian restaurant Bambudda in Ripon is to close this month.

The eatery on Kirkgate posted a message on its Facebook page this afternoon to say that it will shut its doors for the last time on July 11.

Opening in 2017, Bambudda built a name for itself in the city for offering quality Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian and Thai food.

The message said:

 “We are very grateful for your support in last few years. Thank you for all lovely messages, all the amazing staffs in Ripon Team”.

The message added that anyone who has vouchers at the restaurant is able to use them at its Darlington restaurant, which will remain open.

Bambudda is one of Ripon’s most popular restaurants and the post this afternoon prompted a flurry of responses from Riponians who enjoyed eating there.

The comments included ‘Big loss for Ripon, been a few times and always been excellent food and service’ and ‘Thank you for all the support you gave me providing food for the elderly and vulnerable during lockdown — was appreciated by many in Ripon’.

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Harrogate’s Leon drive-thru restaurant on Wetherby Road will open on Friday from 7am.

The Mediterranean-inspired fast food chain will be open daily from 7am to 10pm, except Sundays when it will be open from 8am to 10pm. It will have 70 covers, including some outdoor seating.

The restaurant has created 20 jobs and will feature digital kiosks.

Alex Parkinson, a Harrogate local who was originally hired by Leon as the assistant general manager at the firm’s Gildersome drive-thru, is leading the team.

The company describes itself as being good for the environment and its menu includes “carbon neutral” burgers, rice boxes, breakfast muffins, egg pots and cakes.

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The opening will end a saga that has gone back several years.

Originally, a Starbucks coffee drive-thru was planned for the site but it was refused by Harrogate Borough Council only for the decision to be overturned by a government inspector.

Concerns remain from residents who live near the site on how the drive-thru will affect traffic on the busy Wetherby Road.

Leon was bought by Blackburn billionaires the Issa brothers in 2021.

Glenn Edwards, Leon’s managing director said:

“Since opening our first drive-thru restaurant last year, we have been eager to grow this style of restaurant in order to  bring Leon to more guests and allow them to experience Leon while on the go – something that aligns with our mission to bring naturally fast food that tastes good, does you good and is kind to the planet.

“Our opening in Harrogate is a massive achievement across all fronts.”

A new fast food drive-through restaurant is set to open in Harrogate early next month.

Leon will welcome customers from “early July” to its new Wetherby Road premises, though it has not yet confirmed an exact date.

New manager Alex Parkinson said a 17-strong team is already in training and she is hoping to add three more to that number. She said:

“I love working for Leon as I love the real sense of family within the teams we create – every store I visit has its own family dynamic but you are always made to feel welcome and at home.

“I enjoy the challenge of being a general manager, but my favourite thing about the role and Leon is developing people and watching people grow. Watching my team grow and develop during training has been my favourite part of Leon so far.”

The Mediterranean-inspired restaurant will be open daily from 7am to 10pm, except Sundays when it opens at 8am. It will have a total of 70 covers, including some outdoor seating.

Its menu includes “carbon neutral” burgers, rice boxes, breakfast muffins, egg pots and cakes.

The company has built its reputation on being good for the environment as well as for people – something which is not normally associated with fast food.

Alex, 28, trained with the company in London and helped to open its first drive-through in Gildersome, Leeds. She said she believes Harrogate is ready to welcome a new take on the fast food concept:

“I think it’s something different in the community, fast food that’s good for your gut and a place to come and sit with friends or family…

“We are mindful of our environmental impact in everything we do which is why we have put a number of processes in place to ensure our drive-through [restaurants] do as little damage as possible.”

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The arrival of Leon has proved controversial from the start, long before it was built.

Planning permission was eventually given after the application was initially rejected by Harrogate Borough Council, only for the developer to launch a successful appeal.

It was initially expected to be a drive-through Starbucks, but it was confirmed in March, after construction had begun, that it would instead be a Leon, another brand owned by Euro Garages.

The following month, developers were ordered to remove an 8m advertising sign outside the restaurant which had been erected before planning permission was granted.

However, Alex said now the construction work is complete, she is looking forward to welcoming customers inside.

“I am so excited to launch Leon in Harrogate – it’s probably one of my greatest accomplishments of my career, opening a store as a general manager.

“I could not have done it without the help of my team; they are absolutely amazing.”

Yo Sushi in Harrogate has closed its dining area and will only be open for takeaways ‘until further notice’.

The Albert Street chain sells Japanese food on a conveyor belt, opening in 2016 along with the Everyman Cinema.

But a notice has gone up in its window that says the restaurant will be trading takeaway food for the time being.

The Stray Ferret asked a Yo Sushi team member who said the move is likely to last until the end of the month and was due to staffing problems.

Harrogate’s hospitality businesses have faced well-documented problems hiring staff over the past couple of years, with Brexit, high living costs and low pay all previously blamed for the crisis.

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The Royal Baths Chinese Restaurant in Harrogate re-opened last night.

The restaurant, set in the Grade II listed Royal Baths, is one of the most historic and opulent places to dine in Harrogate.

It has been closed since the end of 2020 and was also shut for most of 2020 due to lockdowns.

But after extensive repair work due mainly to damp, people once again have the chance of a unique eating experience.

The building, which has a central dome and pillars down the side, was built between 1894 and 1897 and for many years was Europe’s premier destination for spa treatments. It is now owned by North Yorkshire County Council.

The restaurant has served traditional Chinese food for about 13 years and will continue to do so.

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A restaurant spokesman said the 100-seat venue would be similar to how customers remembered it, with the VIP room and terrace bar and dining area back in operation. However, the party room is currently unavailable.

He added:

“We have a new team of staff starting and ask people to be patient when we first re-open.

“But it’s very much the same Royal Baths Chinese Restaurant. We have been here for 13 or 14 years now and look forward to welcoming customers back.”

The owners opened the Royal Baths Express takeaway in Pateley Bridge in February.

They also continue to operate Haks Little Royal Baths Chinese Restaurant, on Harrogate’s Station Parade.

More pictures from The Royal Baths Chinese Restaurant

The bar, which leads to the outside terrace.

The terrace area.

The Grade II listed building was built from 1894 to 1897.

Inside the main dining area.

Two Harrogate 26-year-olds are opening a new restaurant and bar on King’s Road next week.

Charlie Moorby and Tom Moxham hope Frog, which will begin serving customers on Wednesday, will bring a “neighbourhood hub” to the Harrogate street.

They hope it could help King’s Road follow Cold Bath Road by becoming more of a destination hub.

Mr Moorby said renovation work is nearly complete. The site, previously Ramus Seafood and What’s Cooking, has been completely refurbished.

The large restaurant will include outdoor seating to the side and front.

Frog has been in the pipeline since last summer.

The two men, former Harrogate Grammar School and Ashville College students, have worked in numerous Harrogate hospitality venues.

This is the first independent venture for Mr Moorby.

After being friends for over a decade, the pair felt they would work well as business partners. Mr Moorby has taken charge of the drinks side and Mr Moxham is overseeing the food and restaurant.

Mr Moorby said:

“We have aimed the whole thing at having a homely feel. We want people to feel like they’re at home or in their friend’s front room. We thought there was a bit of a gap in Harrogate for having high-quality food without the big price tag on it.”

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Speaking about the choice of location on King’s Road, Mr Moorby said they wanted the venue to be more of a community venture than a late-night establishment in the town centre:

“We used Cold Bath Road as an example. Five, six years ago there wasn’t much going on but now there’s so much going on. We felt like the same is happening on King’s Road, it’s becoming its own little suburb.”

About 40 people can be accommodated and enjoy the Asian and South American-inspired menu. About 10 members of staff will be employed.

A decision on the future of Harrogate Borough Council’s former Crescent Gardens offices is set to be made this month, according to site owner Impala Estates.

The Harrogate-based property investment company bought the building in January 2020 for £4m.

It submitted a planning application in March 2021 to transform the site into offices, a gym and a rooftop restaurant.

Under the plans, the empty building, which was built in the 1890s, would be extended by adding two floors.

James Hartley, director at Impala Estates, told the Stray Ferret in an email today that it expected the proposal to be considered by councillors on the planning committee on April 21.

‘Much-needed’ office space

Documents submitted by the developer in November said the conversion would add “much-needed” office space into the town centre.

It said:

“It has been noted that there is a significant lack of high quality office space within the centre of Harrogate along with more office buildings being approved for conversion to residential within the town centre, this being exacerbated by changes in permitted development rules”.

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In December, the public body Historic England said it objected to the two-storey roof-top extension and would prefer a “suitably designed” single-storey extension instead.

It said:

“Whilst we remain supportive of the proposals to sustainability reuse the former council offices, the revised scheme does not address our previous concerns and our position remains unchanged. Unfortunately, the two storey upward extension is still being pursued.”

The Stray Ferret asked the council to confirm whether Crescent Gardens will be on the agenda at the next planning committee meeting but we had not yet received a response by the time of publication.

The saga of the former council site

The future of Crescent Gardens, which has been empty for five years since the council relocated to Knapping Mount in 2017, has become a long-running saga.

Harrogate Borough Council announced when it moved into its new offices that local developer Adam Thorpe would buy the site for £6.31 million.

Mr Thorpe said he would spend £75 million on a refurbishment, which would include an art gallery, underground car park, swimming pool, restaurant and luxury apartments.

Two years later he said he had agreed the sale of 10 of the 12 properties but Mr Thorpe’s company, ATP Ltd, then collapsed with debts of almost £11million, including £24,394 to the council.

The site then went back on the market and was eventually sold to Impala Estates.

It set up a website outlining its vision for the building. The ‘project updates’ section has not been updated since April 1 last year.

Mackenzies in Blubberhouses to host art exhibition

Yorkshire artist Lynda Logan and her husband Terry are to display their work at Mackenzies Farm Shop in Blubberhouses to raise money for charity.

Ms Logan, who has a studio near Harrogate, was one of the original Calendar Girls in the 2003 film. She played a model and her husband was a photographer.

Their exhibition, which begins on April 9, will donate 10% of all sales to Blood Cancer UK.

Blood cancer is the fifth most common cancer in adults and the most common in children.

Paul Palmer, the owner of Mackenzies, said:

“We’re delighted to have Lynda and Terry exhibiting with us in the gallery. Their previous work for charity has been exceptional and we’re excited to help raise even more.”

Events company brings food festival to Pateley Bridge

A previous event hosted by Lily and Lister.

The first Yorkshire Feastival will take place at Pateley Bridge on June 25 and 26.

The event is primarily a food and drink festival but also has an inflatable village, fun fair and a mini farm.

The event will host multiple small business owners, artists and entrepreneurs from Yorkshire. The event is organised by Lily and Lister Events.

Anna Lister, from Lily and Lister, said:

“With so many amazing producers, food, drink and artists from Yorkshire we wanted to create an event celebrating the best of what Yorkshire has to offer and in exceptional countryside in the heart of Yorkshire.

“It’s a great opportunity to come and support local businesses whilst having an amazing day out.”

Two Harrogate restaurants launch charity menu and easter egg hunt 

Provenance Inns & Hotels Group is launching a charity menu and a large easter egg hunt across all its seven venues.

The venues include the West Park Hotel in Harrogate and The Punch Bowl in Marton-Cum-Grafton. Dozens of eggs will be hidden in and around each venue and customers will attempt to find them using clues posted on Facebook.

Anyone who finds one of the chocolate treats can enjoy a free drink at their local Provenance bar.

The Inns group has also launched a new menu.

Tom Patrick, head of marketing at Provenance, said:

“Our Easter egg hunt is going to be quite epic, with not one but seven of Yorkshire’s finest pubs taking part.”

£1 from each Chicken Kyiv dish sold at Provenance venues will go to the Red Cross Ukraine crisis appeal.