A business owner is heartbroken after his Plymouth-based bagel and pizza restaurant succumbed to financial pressures. Brandon Hargrave now lives in a van after Koala Karlous was forced to shut down due to escalating costs.
The entrepreneur launched his business from a van at Cornwall’s Fistral Beach in 2019, later expanding to Plymouth, Falmouth and Cornwall Services near St Austell. He also had a pop-up in London’s affluent South Kensington. However, all locations have ceased operations, resulting in the loss of employment for 50 individuals.
“It’s awful,” said the 31-year-old, who is also a musician. “It’s been a horrible few months. This was our dream, I put my music on hold to start this five years ago with a van on a beach. Now we are totally shattered, we’re still dealing with it. It’s extremely sad.”
Mr Hargrave attributes the downfall to the UK’s economic situation and predicts a challenging future for many food businesses in 2025. He said: “It was the economic climate: rising costs, taxes, and everything. It became insolvent very quickly.
“We did everything we could, we ran events day and night, and did yoga sessions. We put all our energy into it, worked 90-hour weeks, worked around the clock seven days a week. Me and my partner Daisy Peacock haven’t stopped for five years.”, reports Plymouth Live.
“But it became extremely difficult to keep going. It’s happening to almost everyone, the small companies. We did everything we could to avoid closing but there was no way around it.”
Mr Hargrave launched Koala Karlous from a repurposed 120ft shipping container at Mount Batten Pier in July 2023, taking over the former Seawings seafood restaurant site. Initially, the business enjoyed success, offering wood-fired pizzas, bagels, and specialty coffee.
But the businessman soon discovered the outlet’s popularity was heavily weather-dependent. He recalled: “It was really good on sunny days but very quiet on rainy days. It’s a challenge if you are losing money and not earning.”
Ultimately, the business closed all its locations by the end of 2024, shutting down its website.
This week, Mr Hargrave’s company, Koaka Karlous, appointed liquidators and passed a resolution for voluntary liquidation. Mr Hargrave has since relocated to Devon, where he resides with his partner in a van, focusing on his music career. He reflected: “It’s where we were five years ago. We have come full circle.”
The couple had invested all their savings, time, and energy into sustaining Koala Karlous, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Mr Hargrave acknowledged: “We put all our money in and lost it.”
Despite having a music career and setting aside funds for other ventures, he said: “I put a lot into Koala Karlous and lost all of it.”
Mr Hargrave expects more closures, expressing concern about the year ahead: “This year will be difficult for a lot of businesses.”
“If I was to do it again I would have kept it small, as an owner-operator, without other locations and outlays. It’s the owner-operators that will survive, the smaller the better, unless you have significant funding. It’s also hard to say what will work. I thought I knew but clearly I didn’t.
“Now we are trying to get back on our feet. We’re still in Devon, we’re a bit broke, we don’t have anything and are living out of a van now because we lost everything.
“We are just trying to figure out how to survive. But we have our arms and legs and are still breathing. I went through some hard stuff when my brother passed away, it puts life into perspective. So, as long as you have your health.”
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