Marlborough's Rick Stein restaurant will re-open - despite announcing its closure.

The landlord has stepped in and wiped away the rent arrears and reduce rents by 25% meaning the popular High Street venue will again throw open it's doors.

And the 39 staff who were given notice just a few weeks ago are being welcomed back.

Twenty five of them have already said yes. 

Rick Stein told the Gazette and Herald this morning: “I’m delighted that our Landlord in Marlborough made such a generous offer, I had resigned myself to losing the restaurant and our wonderful team and I am so pleased that we can re-open,”

"I think it is a wonderful site in a beautiful market town. Kate, Ed and I put a huge amount of thought into the look and feel of Rick Stein Marlborough and I am relieved that we will be reopening very soon," said Jill Stein.

The Marlborough site is one of 11 outlets owned by the television chef, 73, and Jill Stein and their family, with a total turnover before the pandemic of about £30 million. In addition to six sites in Padstow, dubbed Padstein because of the chef’s influence on the Cornish town, they have outlets in Winchester, Barnes, Falmouth, Newquay and Poole. Another restaurant in Cornwall, in Porthleven, was jettisoned and taken over by Michael Caines, the Michelin-starred chef.

Jack Stein, chef director, said: “We really didn’t want to permanently close Marlborough, but we were going to make a loss. It was a tough decision, but at the time we didn’t know what the future would bring and we had to make some tough choices. That’s when the landlord came good for us.”

The landlord, who did not want to be named, was said to have been “devastated” when the Rick Stein group informed him that it would have to surrender the lease of the Marlborough building that it had taken on in 2016 — so decided to take action.