A Thai restaurant at a busy location in Cardiff city centre has closed down after little more than a year. Busaba in the Brewery Quarter shut its doors for the final time on December 28.
The Caroline Street restaurant was one of only two remaining Busaba restaurants outside London. The chain — which still has nine branches in the UK capital and one in Oxford — enjoyed years of growth after its launch in 1999 by Wagamama founder Alan Yau, who sold the business for £21.5million in 2018 to private equity firm Phoenix Capital Partners.
Branches opened in Manchester, Liverpool, St Albans and Bicester Village but by 2019 all outside London had shut. Busaba began to expand again with openings in Cardiff in 2021 and Oxford in 2022, but lasted only around 14 months in the Welsh capital.
