A NEW deli and barbecue meat shop has opened in Basingstoke.

Safari Sunrise opened in Hackwood Road yesterday after the new owners spent four months renovating the premises, which was previously occupied by a fancy dress shop.

Read more: Sainsbury's cafe in Basingstoke one of 200 set to close

Andy De Beer, who has taken over the unit next to War Memorial Park, said it had been a challenging few months revamping the inside of the building.

However, the 45-year-old father-of-two, who used to run a biltong kiosk in Festival Place, said he is looking forward to welcoming new customers.

“We wanted to open in January. But we renovated the shop ourselves and ran into lots of trouble with plumbing and electrics, so things were delayed,” he explained.

Andy, who comes from South Africa but now lives in Sunbury-on-Thames with his family, hopes the new shop will appeal to the South African community in Basingstoke and the wider public.

He said: “We have a deli which has a selection of items from around the UK and a small selection of European and continental deli items. The grocery items are mostly South African.

“We are foremost a good local store where people from Basingstoke can come for a good selection of barbecue meat and deli items. They can pop to the park after for a picnic or take something home to enjoy with family and friends.”

Andy closed his Limpopo Biltong kiosk in Festival Place in February because he said it was too expensive to run, explaining: “Festival Place is extremely expensive to hold a kiosk and we didn’t always find the footfall and sale correlate. Lots of people pass through but that didn’t always translate to sales. We looked at what we can do and had been looking for a long time and found this place which was absolutely ideal.”

The dad hopes to eventually serve coffee at Safari Sunrise and is awaiting the delivery of a coffee machine.

He said: “All the college students walk up and down this road into town so we will have a lot of footfall and want to draw them in with our coffee.”

Andy said the first day of opening was a success, with customers visiting from as far as Southampton.

He said: “We had a really good day. All our customers who were regulars at the kiosk came as well as new people from Andover, Reading, Southampton and Fleet. We haven’t pushed it too much but it ended up being quite a big day.”

He said the shop’s opening hours will increase once the coffee machine arrives.

As previously reported, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council said it has not yet received a licence application for Safari Sunrise.

The council confirmed that this was still the case last week.

Andy said the business has a food licence, which is on the borough council's website, but he has not yet applied for a premises licence to sell alcohol. 

The shop is not yet selling alcohol. 

The borough council has been asked for further information.

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