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Once a pop­u­lar fix­ture in down­town Port-of-Spain’s food and nightlife scene, D’ Bo­cas Restau­rant and Bar has closed its doors af­ter 37 years of op­er­a­tions in the cap­i­tal, cit­ing de­clin­ing sales, ris­ing tax­es and per­sis­tent post-pan­dem­ic chal­lenges.The clo­sure was an­nounced via so­cial me­dia, where the busi­ness al­so re­vealed plans to tran­si­tion the D’ Bo­cas brand in­to a food-fo­cused fran­chise in the fu­ture. Own­er Laird Agard said the de­ci­sion fol­lowed years of strug­gle to re­cov­er af­ter the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, com­pound­ed by sharply in­creased tax­es linked to bar op­er­a­tions and a 50 per cent de­cline in sales.

“We start­ed as a restau­rant in St James 40 years ago. It’s al­ways been our busi­ness mod­el,” Agard said. “For the last 35-plus years, it’s been a restau­rant and a bar. So the food is not new to us.” D’ Bo­cas lat­er re­lo­cat­ed to the Town Cen­tre Mall in Port-of-Spain, where it be­came known as both a din­ing and so­cial des­ti­na­tion.

How­ev­er, Agard said busi­ness con­di­tions in the cap­i­tal have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in re­cent years.