Coronation Street star Jennie McAlpine, known for her role as Fiz Brown on the ITV soap, and her husband Chris Farr announced the closure of Annies in Manchester last month
A restaurant owned by Coronation Street star Jennie McAlpine and her husband Chris Farr is said to have closed with debts of almost £500,000. The couple had announced the closure of Annies in Manchester earlier this year.
Jennie, 41, who is best known for playing Fiz Brown on the ITV show, explained that the business, which opened in 2012, had closed last month. The actor had thanked both staff and customers, whom she described as “wonderful,” in a message issued by herself and her husband at the time.
Customers were said to have been left devastated. Annies had received acclaim after opening over a decade ago, including being named one of Tripadvisor’s Best of the Best restaurants in the UK last year through the review site’s annual Travellers’ Choice Awards.
Now it appears that Annies has closed with debts. In documents obtained by the Mirror, a list of creditors reveals debts of £498,764, including £28,000 to staff in holiday and redundancy pay. It also appears that Jennie and Chris are set to lose £411,941 that they put into it through director’s loans.
According to Companies House, the couple were directors of Fifth Floor Limited T/A Annies. Amid liquidation, a notice of statement of affairs for the company states that it had £8,722.49 in estimated total assets available for preferential creditors.
The document suggests that those assets could be used to pay off £8,000 to employees for arrears and holiday pay. The remaining £722.49 in assets could be used towards the £6,911.83 in debts owed to HMRC for PAYE/NIC.
Stating the estimated total deficiency/surplus as regards members, the company appears to be £498,764.51 in debt. The document lists £20,000 in employee claims over redundancy & PILON, £11,125.32 to the landlord and £411,941.34 in directors’ loan accounts among the unsecured non-preferential claims (excluding any shortfall to floating charge holders).
Jennie and Chris had announced the closure of Annie’s on social media last month. In a statement to customers, they said that they were sharing the news “with a heavy heart” and expressed gratitude for the support over the years.
The statement in July read: “It’s with a heavy heart that we’ve had to close the doors to Annies this week. We want to thank the amazing people, staff and customers who’ve been part of our journey. Our whole team will miss all of our wonderful customers, who we have come to call friends.”
It continued: “Thank you for the support you’ve given to us all over these years.” Signing off the message about the closure of the restaurant, the couple concluded it by writing to customers: “With love and thanks, Chris and Jennie.”
Fans took to the comments section at the time to express their disappointment. One wrote on Instagram following the news last month: “So sorry to hear about this! Me and my family loved our time when we went here.”
Another said: “I am absolutely gutted, it was my favourite place for afternoon tea.” Whilst someone else reacted on the platform weeks ago: “So gutted. Everytime we visit Manchester we visit Annies. There’s no other place like it.”
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