The owners of a cafe in Cornwall have claimed they face closure over their business’s suggestive name.
Kevin and Laura Baker said they could “lose everything” after councillors lodged objections to their roadside sandwich shop, Nice Baps.
They opened the cafe five years ago in a shipping container revamped to look like a log cabin on a layby of the A39 outside Wadebridge.
It has the highest average rating of 2,217 eateries in Cornwall on Tripadvisor and has previously counted David Cameron among its customers.
But the Bakers said their livelihood was now jeopardy after two parish councillors objected to them renewing their street trading licence.
They said they were told by a licensing officer that the councillors took issue with the name and size of the cafe.
Mr Baker, 54, said: “How on earth can they possibly say it’s the name when there are three other businesses in the country with the same name?"
The English dictionary depicts the name ‘baps’ as a bun.
“And you can’t make a shipping container any bigger than it is – we have smartened it up a bit to make it look like a cafeteria but we haven’t changed the size.
“I’ve got a three-year-old son at home and a ten-year-old daughter – we don’t need this.”
He added: “It has broken us.”
Egloshayle Parish Council denied that the cafe’s name was a problem.
Council clerk John Pomeroy said there were concerns the business may have breached its licensing agreement.
The cafe was almost forced to close two years ago after the Highways Agency raised an objection to their trading licence, but locals launched a campaign to save the business.
The Bakers said they had also rejected three buyout bids from Costa Coffee.
They will face a Cornwall Council licensing hearing next month.
Ms Baker, 34, added: “If we had breached one of the conditions of our license, why have we not had a letter to say can you do something to change it?
“Anything they have ever asked us – we have done it at the drop of the hat.
“We do everything to go by the book and the rules. They are holding us to our license renewal and we are going to lose everything – we are going to be bankrupt.
“It is heartbreaking. We are only little fish in a big ocean. I don’t know why they are against us.”
Her husband added: “After all the work that Laura and I have done for the local community and raising over £15,361 towards helping house Cornwall’s homeless and being a hub for all walks of life to come and visit, it’s tearing us apart knowing that a council committee on the 12 December could possibly close us down.”
SWNS
