A POPULAR bar in Colwyn Bay which shut six months ago due to maintenance problems has confirmed its permanent closure.

Briggs Wine Bar, at 2 Penrhyn Road, closed in March after a blockage of its main waste pipe, which the owners admitted "didn't look like that's going to change any time soon."

Since then, the bar had posted no updates on social media and had not responded to any queries, before making a sudden announcement last week.

The owners said the decision to close “breaks their hearts”, but disclosed that the work to fix a collapsed main waste pipe was not the reason for closing.

Instead, the financial impact of the closure and the wait for an insurance pay-out, which they labelled “still incorrect” and “farcical”, had ultimately lead to the end for the business.

In a notice to customers on social media, the owners said: “It breaks our hearts to tell you this, but after six months of doing everything we possibly could to get back open again, we have unfortunately now reached a point where it's just no longer viable - and so Briggs, as we know it, is over.

“As you probably know we were forced to close suddenly and unexpectedly back in March when the main waste pipe for the building collapsed.

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“Initially our worry was that the repair was going to be a huge undertaking and quite possibly even our responsibility.

“Thankfully this wasn't the case, our landlord took care of everything and the work was actually completed by the end of April.

“Even better, our insurance included Business Interruption cover, so things should all have worked out OK. However, as it turned out, our run of s***** luck wasn't over yet.

“The impact that the sudden closure had on us financially meant that there was no way we could reopen until we'd received our insurance payout.

“But we somehow got lumbered with a loss adjustor who not only took up to eight weeks to reply to emails but also made a string of errors and incorrect calculations along the way, which we had to repeatedly correct ourselves.

“Six months down the line and we have only just accepted a settlement amount, still incorrect, and nothing close to what we would now need to reopen - but we couldn't justify things dragging on any longer than they already have done.

“The whole thing has been utterly farcical - laughable even, if it wasn't that it's ultimately cost us our business.

“We're aware there's been a lot of speculation and misinformation going around as to what's been going on - we've moved away, split up, the list goes on.

“In actual fact we've continued paying the bills this whole time, mostly out of our own pocket, in the hope that we would be able to reopen and it wouldn't come to this.

“But we've accepted it for what it is, and honestly the hardest part and the bit we've been dreading, is breaking it to you guys.

“We know you've all been hoping that we'd be back, and your messages, kind words and support over the last few months has meant so much to us.

“We thought about posting so many times but there wasn't much we could say about what was going on and we didn't want to give you false hope when the situation was so dire.

“So that's us done. We're not going to disappear on you immediately so this isn't goodbye just yet.

“But we'll probably be quiet for a few days cos this sucks exponentially and we just need to take a minute.

“This really would be a lot easier if you guys weren't so ace.”

Briggs Wine Bar was opened in 2018 by Kathryn Doyland and Hayley Walker, with Stephen Jay joining the group.

At the former site of The Glass Lounge, the bar has become a popular place for nightlife in the town, with excellent reviews on TripAdvisor and Google.