THE owner of a popular Chippenham restaurant which was completely destroyed in a fire almost a year ago has thanked the support of his loyal customers as he plans to re-open the business.

The Garden, a café, bar and grill located on The Bridge, was completely gutted when a blaze broke out in the premises on February 28 last year.

John Paine has spent the past 12 months fighting to repair and rebuild the business and plans to re-open it in early March, after previously opening another restaurant in Trowbridge last year.

“It’s been a roller-coaster of a year since the fire,” said the 34-year-old.

“Initially it was devastating and it took quite a long time to get over that and then there was the stress of not knowing if I was going to be insured.

“The support from our customers has been one of the things to keep me going.

“We’ve had people say they can’t wait for us to re-open and that they really miss us.

“One of my customers is 94 years old and comes in for a latte and they come over on the bus from Chippenham to Trowbridge. Things like that just make my day.”

Mr Paine estimates that the cost of building work alone would have been in excess of £250,000, which included repairing the structure of the building.

A number of changes have been made to the restaurant including the installation of air conditioning, creating more indoor space and a wider entrance into the court yard.

“It isn’t 100 per cent clear how the fire started but we think it was an electrical fault,” said Mr Paine.

“I think we were quite unfortunate the fire happened, it wasn’t anybody’s fault but we’ve got a whole new electrical system in place.

“It’s made me more cautious as a person because I lost everything.

“I’ve grown up a bit. This was one of the biggest setbacks in my life and certainly in my career but a lot of my team have stayed with me.

“I just want to apologise for the problems and disruption it caused to people and our neighbours in the town but we’re looking forward to running a successful business again.”