A popular dessert chain has been forced to close its Edinburgh branch only six months after opening, leaving staff angry and out of work.
Jars Dessert Bar, located in the city’s trendy Quartermile area, shut its doors on April 25. The closure came after the business first opened in November last year.
Eight employees were reportedly left without jobs. One senior manager, Ian Munro, criticized the company’s handling of the closure, saying staff were given little warning and no redundancy payments.
Munro, who managed the Lister Square branch, told the Edinburgh Evening News that workers were supposed to receive two weeks’ notice. However, they were informed of the closure just a day before it happened.
“I was fuming,” Munro said. “The new owners let the place go to the wall. They let staff go without any redundancy payments. This has left them all, quite rightly, very annoyed.”
He explained that management contacted him on the afternoon before the store shut. The next day, the shop closed permanently.
Describing their final shift as “tough,” Munro said, “Everyone was in shock and angry about how it had been handled.”
He also revealed there were delays with employees receiving their final wages. Although all payments were eventually made, the initial problem added to staff frustration.
Munro has since resigned in protest. “I don’t want to work for a company that treats its staff like that,” he said. “People need to know how badly the staff were treated. I’m worried about them. They have bills to pay amid a cost of living crisis.”
The Sun has approached Icon Brand, the company behind Jars Dessert Bar, for comment.
The closure of Jars is part of a wider trend of retailers shutting stores in 2025. New Look, a major fashion retailer, is accelerating its store closure programme, with around 91 of its 364 stores at risk when leases expire. This could affect many of its 8,000 employees.
Other retailers are also downsizing due to rising business rates, shifting consumer habits towards online shopping, and the impact of high inflation.
Data from the Centre for Retail Research shows 13,479 stores closed in 2024, an average of 37 per day. Most closures involved independent shops, but over 2,100 were linked to larger chains. More than half of these closures were due to insolvency.
Related topics:
