Living in a van after closure of restaurants

A BUSINESS owner has been left broke and broken-hearted after his Plymouth restaurant went to the wall.Brandon Hargrave is now living in a van after losing everything when his Koala Karlous bagel and pizza enterprise had to close due to rising costs.

- By WILLIAM TELFORD [e-mail] @wtelfordherald

Mr Hargrave started the Koala Karlous food business from a van on Cornwall's Fistral Beach in 2019 and saw it grow to have restaurants in Plymouth, Falmouth and at Corn- wall Services, near St Austell - with a pop-up in London's South Kensing- ton. But all have now closed, putting 50 people out of work.

"It's awful," said Mr Hargrave, aged 31, who also works as a musi- cian. "It's been a horrible few months. This was our dream, I put my music on hold to start this five years ago with a van on a beach. Now we are totally shattered, we're still dealing with it. It's extremely sad."

Mr Hargrave said the UK's econ- omy was to blame and forecast that many more food outlets will struggle in 2025. He said: "It was the eco- nomic climate: rising costs, taxes, and everything. It became insolvent very quickly.

"We did everything we could, we ran events day and night, and did yoga sessions. We put all our energy into it, worked 90-hour weeks, worked around the clock seven days a week. Me and my partner Daisy Pea- cock haven't stopped for five years, but it became extremely difficult to keep going.