Wahaca in South Street will not reopen as the Mexican restaurant group report a 'depletion of significant cash reserves' and a dramatic increase in rents and business rates. The Chichester restaurant is among ten that will remain shut to the public including Bluewater, Bristol, Brixton, Charlotte Street, Manchester, Liverpool, Kentish Town, Southampton and St Pauls. CEO and co-founder Mark Selby confirmed that jobs will be retained 'wherever possible'. In an email to employees this morning, Mark and co-founder Tommi Miers, said: "These have been the hardest decisions of our lives and we have looked at this from every angle with the sole objective of looking after as many of our teams and restaurants as we can without having to close the business for good like so many others have had to do. "Pre-Covid restaurant rents in city centres, where the majority of our sites are, relative to the sales achievable in those areas had become hugely overpriced. In the last 5 years some of our rents had gone up by 70 per cent or so as well as business rates going up by 30-40 per cent. "We were managing fine and we were growing so we could stomach this, although it did hurt. In the new world, where there is such huge uncertainty, many of those sites now look in the short and medium term untenable and we would put the whole business at risk if we were to carry on trading in them." The email later added: "As I said in the title, this is genuinely the hardest email I have ever had to send and I am truly sorry that you are all recipients of it. I apologise unreservedly to those affected and once again thank you for everything you have done for us. "Whilst it is little conciliation please know that you have helped make Wahaca into the much-loved business it is today and you will be very much part of its history and its DNA." It was confirmed that the company will only reopen sites that will not lose money – to avoid putting the entire business and every job at risk.