A POPULAR Italian restaurant has closed after 20 years.

Little Venice, St Nicholas Street, Worcester, is the latest casualty of the recession and will become a Tiger Bills, owned by the Lifestyle Hospitality Group, with outlets in Exeter and Torquay.

The company’s website says the 2,000 square foot restaurant will get a £150,000 makeover and a bigger kitchen. Tiger Bills describes itself as ‘a unique East meets West’ restaurant with authentic Thai alongside traditional Western grill.

Andy Bower, director and manager of Little Venice who ran the business with Sandra Sahota, said the rent was £15,000 a year more than the business could sustain. The business ceased trading on Monday with a sign in the window thanking customers for their support.

Mr Bower, who lives above the restaurant, is due to move out by Sunday. He hopes to eventually move back into his house in Oxfordshire which he now lets to someone else.

He said: “I’m 62 years old – I wasn’t expecting to find myself on the jobs market. I was hoping to be here for another 10 years. We’re getting nothing back from the restaurant despite what we have put in, which is a bit galling. “All that money we put in and we’re not going to see a penny back. All we’re going to end up with is debt.”

The restaurant was a Pizza Express for three years, opening in 1988, before it became Little Venice in 1991 and the current managers took over in September 2003. The menu was expanded and the independent restaurant made all its own dessert other than ice cream. Mr Bower said the restaurant prided itself on making its own sauces and bakes and providing the best pizza in the city. He said: “So many people have come to shake us by the hand and say ‘It’s so disappointing you’re closing down’. The restaurant was very popular. We have a very good following. “The business is a casualty of the recession, despite a huge, committed customer base and following.”

He said he would love to set up another Little Venice in Worcester but another branch in Burton-upon-Trent had left them with a six-figure debt and he had to cash in his pension to keep it going before it closed in 2010. He said in the current economic climate the banks would not lend the money for such an enterprise in the city. He said the restaurant had been hit by the opening of Pizza Express in College Street but received further blows from the opening of Zizzi in the High Street and Carluccio’s in Chapel Walk, which left Worcester “overpopulated with Italian restaurants”.

In January Ask Italian also closed its restaurant in Angel Place, Worcester.