La Grande Mare owner confirms Vistas purchase
Vistas Cafe at Vazon has been bought by the owner of La Grande Mare, it has been confirmed.
Rumours about the purchase of the business by Stephen Lansdown’s company have been circulating for some time, but he finally confirmed it in a message to members of La Grande Mare’s Health Club.
‘In the long term it will form part of the resort as a beach cafe, in the short term, following the closure of the club, it will provide a welcome venue for health club members and golfers to meet pre-and post-play,’ he wrote.
He said it was also hoped to host ‘members only’ events over the summer and access will be made to Vistas for Tuesday club nights, competitions, team events and inter-club matches.
The cafe will be managed by Liam Smyth as director of operations, a role which he will continue to hold at the health club.
Mr Smyth said it would be very much ‘business as usual’ but with two changes – re-opening the roof area to patrons, and creating a hatch near the main entrance to serve customers who just want an ice cream or drink. The roof was closed several years ago after seagulls proved to be a major nuisance, but Mr Smyth said the idea will be to not offer food service and restrict it to just drinks.
However, when the changes are implemented will depend on staff and he said that more were needed, in addition to the existing staff members who will remain at the cafe, who were described as ‘a very good team' by Pula Ltd property manager Bonny Hamilton.
‘The first year will be a bit of a test run, to see what works and what doesn’t work,’ said Mr Smyth.
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Breakfasts have become popular at Vistas and, staff permitting, it is intended to offer food into the evening, too, beyond the current 4pm (winter) and 5pm (summer) closing times. He said regular cafe-goers such as bikers, cyclists and surfers would all continue to be welcome along with other members of the public.
In his same message to health club members, Mr Lansdown said that La Grande Mare hotel will close completely this month, with work to remove derelict greenhouses around the green-keeping area imminent. It was intended that the golf pro shop and the health club would remain open during the development of the new country club.
‘Work on the course will not commence until January 2023, which means that we are able to hold the full complement of competitions planned for this year,’ said Mr Lansdown.
The hotel recently donated mattresses from its bedrooms to the Lihou Island Trust for use in the house and kitchen equipment is being given to Grow Ltd for use at its new site, where the plan is to create a kitchen training area for its service users.
Remaining mattresses and other items such as toasters, kettles and other kitchenware were put up for sale last Saturday morning and Mrs Hamilton said hundreds of islanders attended the sale.
Even so, there were still things left and the company is pondering how to find new homes for these and might have one more ‘everything must go’ event.
Once the hotel closes a ‘soft strip’ of the building will begin, but it will be several weeks or longer before the main structure starts to be taken down.
