The business formerly known as Sugo, and latterly as Sud, Rigatoni’s, has announced that it will be closing the doors to its Ancoats restaurant. The Manchester pasta spot underwent a rebrand in January this year featuring a new concept in which each restaurant specialised in serving hearty bowls of house-made rigatoni.
At the time of its latest rebrand the restaurant group had four locations across Greater Manchester including ones in Altrincham, Ancoats, Sale, plus Exhibition in the city centre. However, their Ancoats restaurant is the latest location from Rigatoni’s that will be closing, following on from the closure of its Sale branch in Stanley Square as well as their kitchen inside Exhibition food hall earlier this year.
Rigatoni’s comes from the Manchester-born brothers who originally founded Sugo Pasta Kitchen, in Altrincham in 2015. In a statement shared on social media today (May 20), the owners wrote that the last year had been “brutal” and a “massive uphill battle” and that “we have failed not just ourselves, but more importantly our customers and our staff.”
This Saturday (May 25) will be the last day of service for the Rigatoni’s restaurant in Ancoats before it will be closing its doors for good.
As for the final Rigatoni’s restaurant in Altrincham, it sounds like the team may be bringing back elements of the much-loved Sugo days with the return of their “Pugliese crockery” and “the small, ever changing and considered menu” scrawled all over their chalkboard. And regarding the name change, there won’t be one.
The full statement from Rigatoni’s
“I know you all must be sick of the sight of yet another announcement from us, and I can definitely understand why.
“The last 12 months (and even going back to covid) have been brutal to say the least. We’ve been on a constant mission to try to make our restaurants sustainable – for us, for our customers, and for our staff, in what has felt like a massive uphill battle, in the midst of conditions that obviously have not been unique to us.
“The latest attempt to do this was in the guise of going all out to create a more affordable, accessible, but still quality product that could be replicated across many sites. I/we now have to accept that we have failed in this mission. The hardest part is that we have failed not just ourselves, but more importantly our customers and our staff, and for this we are truly sorry.
“What this means is that unfortunately our Ancoats restaurant will be closing this week, with the last day of service being Saturday the 25th May. We’ve an incredible and talented team of people there, who I know will go on from us to do great things – a huge thank you to them for doing there absolute all in trying to make work whatever we have put before them.”
“After the journey of the last few years, we’ve really spent time recently considering what the most important values were to us that we held closest when we first started out.
“Quite honestly it was simply to create unique, high quality southern Italian inspired dishes, with a small, deeply passionate and committed team, that cannot be found elsewhere. And this is what we want to breathe back into our Altrincham restaurant – to give you a product and a service that you and us can be proud of. We’re not going to be trying to compete with anyone else – we will simply endeavour night and day to be the best possible version of ourselves that we can be, offering a unique experience that will only be found in the walls of our small Altrincham restaurant.
“To give you a feel for what I’m talking about – we’ll be bringing back our Pugliese crockery / the small, ever changing and considered menu will be scrawled all over our chalkboard / Deliveroo will no longer be a part of what we do / we’ll be committed to the principle of offering nothing ‘standard’. Oh, and our Dad is coming up to help us make this happen!
“We won’t be changing our name (we’ve done this way too many times plus we want to focus all our attention on delivering the above), but I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that the red will be going! This mission begins in Altrincham from 5pm on Wednesday the 5th June. Until then we will run a normal service.”