Swindon's largest Chinese restaurant has closed while the owners consider its future following financial difficulties.

The Chinese Experience, at Peatmoor Lagoon, West Swindon, has been closed for the past month after 13 years in business.

A meeting of the company creditors will be held in The Ivy House Hotel, Marlborough, on Friday.

David Myler, who has managed the £1m restaurant since it was launched in 1990, claims that its doors will be open again next month.

He said: "We are simply changing hands and will be open again in the first or second week of September."

Mr Myler said that custom has fallen in recent years.

He said: "Trade is very different to what it was six or seven years ago. We used to serve lots of business people. Now it is more a family thing."

Chefs and waiting staff at the two-storey pagoda-style restaurant, once the largest of its kind in Europe, have left to work in London.

Mr Myler said: "New staff will be employed. People were given the chance to stay but we have been closed for weeks now."

Even the SARS crisis in March contributed to the closure.

He said: "Honda bosses from Japan use our restaurant for business lunch and dinners.

"But they were unable to fly over during the SARS crisis. All these factors add up.

"Business is slow across the board, even hotels are finding it hard." Mr Myler insisted that the closure of Cellular Operations in June, located nearby at Hillmead, had no impact on trade.

Originally run by local Chinese takeaway owner Lawrence Lee and a group of London and Swindon based Chinese businessmen, the 300-seat restaurant closed in May 1999 for refurbishment. It re-opened under new management after a face-lift costing more than £100,000.

The current managing directors of the two-storey restaurant are Lik Wai Hung and David Hung.

The meeting in The Ivy House Hotel, Marlborough, starts at 12.30pm.