The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known eatery is aiming to become “the best Bahamian restaurant destination” for Cable Beach tourists, after its owners decided to pull it off the market and invest $35,000 in a revamp and name change.

Accountant Bennet Atkinson, who together with business partner, Marissa Malone, has renamed Indigo Cafe the ‘Pot & Cake’, told Tribune Business the duo had “decided to reinvest and give it another go” after receiving no acceptable offers for the business.

Acknowledging that the bar/restaurant had been “limping along” over the past several years due to a downturn in the tourist business along the Cable Beach strip, Mr Atkinson said the business had closed down for two weeks to undergo its transformation into the Pot and Cake.

Apart from re-decorating and painting, this has involved a menu revamp into high-end Bahamian-themed cuisine, with a juice and daiquiri bar experience also being developed for an outdoor area out-back.

Indigo was an especially popular destination for expatriates, residents and young professionals in the Cable Beach and western New Providence area, and Mr Atkinson said the now 10-year-old operation aimed to capitalise on the $2.6 billion project taking place just down the street.

“We’re hoping with the whole Baha Mar development, and when tourism comes back to Cable Beach, we’ll be considered the best Bahamian restaurant destination for those tourists,” he told Tribune Business.

“Business has not been great in the last couple of years because of the state of Cable Beach tourism. Our local business has been great, but we’ve been limping along and are definitely trying to turn that around.

“The local business has never let us down. We’re quite prominent in the area, and we’ve always managed to survive, but really need the tourist business.”

Confirming that he and his business partner, the daughter of well-known Bahamian artist Brent Malone, had been looking to exit the business, Mr Atkinson said they had only recently pulled the restaurant off the market after receiving no serious offers that matched their asking price.

“Unfortunately, most people thought it meant fire sale,” he told Tribune Business. “We weren’t in any hurry to sell it, and if people were not prepared to pay the right price to compensate us, we were unable to sell.

“It was a waste of time. We went through a number of buyers who wanted to buy it for nothing, and we were not prepared to do that. No one wanted to pay the right price, so we decided to reinvest and give it another go.”

While the $35,000 investment had not been “a large expenditure”, Mr Atkinson said the Pot and Cake - located next to Rubins and Starbucks on West Bay Street and Skyline Drive - had “opened under a whole new theme”.

It was now a high-end Bahamian menu, as opposed to the previous “international general menu” that lacked focus, with upgrading the food offering and standards a key objective of the revamp.

“Most of our customers want this menu, and the tourist business is so down on Cable Beach,” Mr Atkinson said. “Tourists want to get out of the hotel and have a Bahamian experience that is not overpriced.

“That’s our target, We’re all-Bahamian. Our goal is all about being Bahamian.”

Mr Atkinson added that Pot and Cake was “in the process” of developing a juice and daiquiri bar experience for a back section of the property that was “not utilised”.