A café in Dundee will become one of the latest businesses to close permanently due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The White Rabbit Cupcakery, situated at West Port will close its doors for good tomorrow despite only opening for the first time just over a year ago.
The café, run by Tamarin O’Ferrall, opened in September 2019 but closed in March for lockdown. They then reopened three weeks ago, however, Tamarin says the closure comes as it is no longer “financially viable” to run the business.
The 31-year-old said: “I’m not impressed, I’m not happy but it needs to be done.
“It’s not at all financially viable anymore. There’s not the same footfall because we relied a lot on the students and businesses around us. Obviously they aren’t there.
“We were bringing in a minimal amount of money so it was actually costing more to open the doors every day than we were making.
“It is very upsetting.”
© Steve Brown / DCT Media
Tamarin decided to open the café after previously building a business making and selling cakes from her home.
She said: “When I had my daughter seven years ago I decided I wanted to work from home so started making cakes, which I had never done before. That was in Edinburgh.
“I brought a customer base to over 3,000 customers, and then I moved to Dundee and she went to school.
“I had more time on my hands so I thought a café would be better than working from home all the time.”
Speaking about her decision to close on Halloween she said: “I do all the baking and stuff myself, and there’s a lot of fresh baking so I thought rather than binning it, just open up until everything is sold out.
“We’ve got guising sweets and everything for the kids because the kids have missed out on so much so I thought we’ll just hold out until Halloween, let kids come in and have a bit of a Halloween celebration and then close.”
© Steve Brown / DCT Media
Tamarin also paid tribute to her customers. She said: “Thank you to my customers for their support and encouragement over the past year. It was all much appreciated.”
She added: “Opening a business was vey exciting and I loved decorating the café, cooking and baking for it, meeting loads of lovely new people, having a laugh with all my amazing staff and in general being my own boss.
“I would gladly have carried on with it if it was viable but hopefully something else exciting comes around in the future.”
Anyone interested in getting in contact with Tamarin to discuss future orders can contact her via email at info@whiterabbitdundee.co.uk. Those with gift cards for the café will still able to use their vouchers to order items such as cakes.
