An Aberdeenshire couple have made the switch from thinking about rigs to restaurant menus with a new business venture.
Husband-and-wife duo, Craig and Donna Allan, from Westhill, are preparing to open a new high-end eaterie in Inverurie on Saturday.
The restaurant, called Chapter One, hopes to bring a taste of fine dining to the rapidly-expanding town, with chefs joining the project from Café 52 in Aberdeen and the five-star Mayfair hotel, Claridge’s.
Mrs Allan, 39, said: “We were both in the oil industry, but decided it was time to diversify into something new.
“It has always been a passion of Craig’s to open a restaurant, so we thought this was the best time to do it.
“We took the premises over last year with the view to completely redoing it – which started in January.
“We have completely changed the whole look of the venue and we decided on Inverurie because there wasn’t anything else like Chapter One in that area.
“The town also has a rapidly-growing population and we wanted to give people an experience they haven’t had before.”
Speaking about what people could expect from the new bistro, Mrs Allan responded she and her husband were striving to create the ultimate experience in customer service and fill a gap in the market for fine dining outside Aberdeen.
She said: “In our market research, we found there are lots of international restaurants, but the only other place you could get what we are offering may be in a hotel or if you were to travel into Aberdeen.
“But sometimes people can’t be bothered to go to Aberdeen, and would just like something local, so it’s giving people something that hasn’t been there before.
“Our slogan says it is ‘a new beginning’, but this isn’t just the case for Craig and I, but for the residents of Inverurie.”
