THE owner of a chain of Turkish restaurants says that its Winchester branch is still coming to the city, despite a series of delays.

Turkuaz was set to open in a historic building on Jewry Street last September before the opening date was postponed until mid-February.

Now Turkuaz founder and owner Cevdet Mutlu has said that the restaurant will open at an unconfirmed date between the end of April and the middle of May, with the delay caused by issues with an interactive dart game he is hoping to have for the restaurant.

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He told the Chronicle: “We are now introducing this interactive darts game into our establishment, and the technology of that is taking a bit of time because it’s a late add-on to when we want to open properly – we didn’t want to open without it. So, we were going to open in February but then we decided to have six sections of this interactive darts area implemented into the restaurant operations, to give a nice entertainment offering as well as food and beverage offerings.

“The technology is taking a bit of time, and hopefully we’ll open within the next six to eight weeks.”

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Turkuaz will sell authentic chargrilled Turkish food, freshly prepared on-site, as well as wine from a carefully crafted menu. Mr Mutlu has previously told the Chronicle that the restaurant will provide 140 covers when it opens, with a mezzanine area. It has also created 14 jobs.

The restaurant will be located in a historical Tudor building on Jewry Street, previously the home of Loch Fyne which closed in 2020.

There are currently eight Turkuaz restaurants across the south of England, including in Dorking, Newbury and Horsham.