Bid to rebuild '˜destroyed' restaurant

Natalia Witczak put a month of work into opening her Polish restaurant in Shirebrook.

She and her business partner Krzysztof created the ‘Two Flags’ restaurant in December last year and opened their door on January 5.

But only seven days later, the business on Patchwork Row was ‘destroyed’ before it could even take off thanks to a discrepancy with her landlord.

Natalia said: “We are two friends and created our restaurant together, but the person who rented the premises to us destroyed our restaurant and we had to close it down.

“We’re raising money to fix the electricity and local premises because someone defrauded me for money and I lost it.

“The person who sublet it to me shouldn’t have and he washed his hands of the situation.”

And it appears that while the tenant at the time was engaging Natalia in a contract, the owner of the property had plans of his own.

“On Friday (January 15) we found out the truth and we had to take our staff and move out.

“He wants to turn it into flats. It’s a nightmare.”

“I’ve tried to find a new premises myself but it was very hard during a month to have any local ready to transfer a restaurant.

So Natalia is making an extraordinary request of her customers who want to see the restaurant reopen.

She’s opened a Gofundme page to try and raise £3,000.

“We are still looking for help to find a place to rebuild our restaurant, and we need to raise money to rent new premises refurbish, do repairs, fit a new kitchen and re-open again.”

“We lost lots of money in this process so please help us and show your support for a loa business

To help go to Gofundme.com.