A chill of recession at Port Solent

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jonjo

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Walking along the broadwalk at Port Solent over the bank holiday weekend I counted 5 empty waterfront units where the previous business seemed to have cleared out in a rush. My guess is that 30% of the retail/food space is out of commission at present.

Hopefully the capitalist system will eat its dead, rents will drop and more interesting independent restauranteurs will move in.

Is the decline at Port Solent a recent event?
 
It's unlikely the marina will drop its rentals and certain the council won't drop its rates. Anyone starting up in a top-end environment like that today is either living in cloud cuckoo land or knows something the rest of the world doesn't.
 
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It always seems to be fairly marginal place to run a business.

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With a cinema, David Lloyd health club and row upon row of mobos onsite I'd have thought the fundamentals were good.

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The only eateries seem to be chains; i.e. pricey plastic food.

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We tried Cafe Uno at Port Solent which turned out to be an unexpected pleasant surprise.
 
I don't think Gunwharf Quays has done the restaurants and bars in Puerto Solente any favours, but then again, when it was "the" place to go, it was a complete zoo some nights: if it re-emerges a bit quieter and upmarket, that might not be a bad thing.

dv.
 
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I don't think Gunwharf Quays has done the restaurants and bars in Puerto Solente any favours, but then again, when it was "the" place to go, it was a complete zoo some nights: if it re-emerges a bit quieter and upmarket, that might not be a bad thing.

dv.

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I agree, we used to occasionally pop over to Port Solent for something to eat and now if I am going to go that far I might as well go to Gunwharf. No doubt the economic depression has not helped either.
 
In a way I was pleased to see everyone here say how busy the lock was on Monday. We were there Sunday and the marina looked very empty...except for all the sunsail boats (an unusual sight to see hardly any of them chartered out sailing). The showers haven't been completed yet and when I asked when they were due to be completed, I got a cagey answer. My concern is that Premier have overextended themselves buying Swanwick (which they are unable to develop and certainly unable to realise what they thought they would in property sales).

Me and SWMBO commented that what Port Solent needed was a big M&S :-)
 
A mate of mine looked at renting one of the units and in the end he didn't go ahead. The money they asked (council inc) was way too high for anything inovative to establish itself and the Port Solent commitee had a more preconceived idea of what they wanted in the units and didn't really want to take any risks.

Fair enough but I'm sure the money coming in would have been more than an empty unit.
 
Whenever I go there (chartering from Sunsail) we eat on board, simply because the eateries (can't call them restaurants) are such a disaster. Hour long waits; still frozen food; zoo-like atmosphere: just not good. Maybe I just haven't found the good ones.
 
Olivios (the Italian at the far end) is usually good. Curry place up top near Chiquitos is okay if you order the right dish.

dv.
 
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Olivios (the Italian at the far end) is usually good.

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You should have said "was".

Olivios is one of the 5 ground floor units that has closed down, in fact only Cafe Uno and the Mermaid pub were operating along that stretch of the broadwalk.
 
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It's unlikely the marina will drop its rentals

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Why? Supply & demand is the oldest economic rule in the book.

There is also the house of cards effect to consider with such a leisure complex. Imagine an out of town shopping center with 30% of the stores empty, is that good or bad news for the remaining shops? I reckon bad news because people might not bother to make the trip.
 
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Olivios (the Italian at the far end) is usually good.

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You should have said "was".

Olivios is one of the 5 ground floor units that has closed down, in fact only Cafe Uno and the Mermaid pub were operating along that stretch of the broadwalk.

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O Dear, I was only there a couple of months ago /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
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Me and SWMBO commented that what Port Solent needed was a big M&S :-)

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Me the the swmbo sat in Cafe Uno designing a restaurant to fill one of the vacant units, it would be called Chow Med or The Levant and would cherry pick dishes from any country bordering the Mediterranean.
 
Gunwharf is not what it was either, quality down, prices up particularly the wine in a couple of places we used to go to.
Port Solent is a drive or long cab ride for most people in Portsmouth, whereas the palces in town have a customer base within walking distance or cheap cab ride.
But Port Solent has a dump and a chandlery. I looked at buying a house there years ago, but the noise and fumes of stinkboat engines idling on a summers evening was enough to put me off. And how does any boat owner live without a garage?
 
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A mate of mine looked at renting one of the units and in the end he didn't go ahead. The money they asked (council inc) was way too high for anything inovative to establish itself

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I did some googling this morning, there is a boutique sized retail unit available at Port Solent for £18k per annum. The restaurant premisses would be 3 to 4 times larger.
 
Oh wow, is Olivios closed? We've had Christmas parties etc in there. Mind you I noticed the prices were high last time I was there about two months ago.

The pasta place up top, nearby to the Indian was a nice surprise a while back though.
 
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