Love Saves the Day, one of the innovative retailers identified by The Grocer as One to Watch earlier in the year, has been forced to close its doors after hitting financial difficulties.
The Manchester-based wine merchant, fine food retailer and café bar operator, which was set up in 1999 by former Simply Red drummer Chris Joyce and his wife Beckie, has gone into voluntary receivership and has shut down its two stores in Manchester city centre.
Love Saves the Day had a turnover of £450,000 and the couple said that it was set up as an alternative to what they saw as Manchester’s “increasingly bland” café culture.
The shock announcement came just months after Beckie Joyce told The Grocer about its plans to expand the operation through two new franchise stores in the Manchester area. It had also moved its original Tib Street store to larger premises in Oldham Street in February.
Joyce said: “Love Saves the Day must reluctantly close its doors while we are trying to unravel a difficult and complicated situation over detailed and complex accounts.”
The couple have started a new company that has acquired the Love Saves the Day trading name and are setting up an online business selling own label wine, coffee and olive oil.
The Joyces said that they would look at what they could do to make sure that their new venture would also have a “bricks and mortar presence in Manchester city centre”.

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