A LIVERPOOL city centre delicatessen is bucking the trading trend and expanding to a second shop in the South Docks.
Delifonseca proprietor Candice Fonseca will open a new, larger, retail outlet at Brunswick Dock on September 1.
A staff of 20 has been recruited for the opening. It is a larger version of the current award-winning Delifonseca, based in Stanley Street, which employs 24 people.
Above its basement delicatessen is an up-market restaurant, with acclaimed Liverpool chef Martin Cooper in charge.
The Brunswick Dock property, on the Dock Road, started life as Harry Ramsden’s Fish and Chip Shop, which closed in 2005.
Most recently it was Il Bacino, an up-market delicatessen which had ceased trading. However, Ms Fonseca is undaunted by the failure of that business, which was a start-up.
Her plan is to cash-in on commuters, business park workers, local flat-dwellers and drivers unable to park at the original Delifonseca city centre premises.
She also believes that her main rivals are up-market farm shops, whose customers expect free parking.
The new property’s delicatessen will be three times larger than the existing Stanley Street shop, and it will also boast a 60-seater restaurant.
The complex will include Brough’s Butchers, a concession taken by the traditional, high-quality family firm, based on the Sefton coast.
“This will be a soft opening, without too much fanfare,” said Ms Fonseca.
“It’s been a long time in the planning and I look forward to steadily establishing the business at Brunswick Dock.
“In fact, it could turn out to be bigger business than Stanley Street.
“If the recession had not happened we’d be in a better position, but every business will say that.
“Things like that knock you back, but the business has come through it better than expected.
“Our outside catering business, which was an after-thought, has grown and now accounts for 20% of our turnover.
“This has compensated for the downturn in the deli and restaurant business over the last 18 months.”
She opened Delifonseca in 2006, after working for 10 years as a feature film production co-ordinator and manager.
She was involved in films such as comedian Steve Coogan’s The Parole Officer and 24 Hour Party People, written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, of Crosby.
