The Bombay Bicycle Club is closing its doors today after a 17-year run as one of Bermuda's most popular restaurants serving Indian cuisine.

"Costs seemed to go up and revenues didn't ... I feel awful about it but it was just one of those business decisions you have to make," said Bermuda Restaurants partner John Roach. Bermuda Restaurants is the chain which owns the Bombay, as well as Rosa's Cantina and Chopsticks.

"We're very lucky - we have two very successful restaurants," Mr. Roach, who partners with Pam Quarterly in owning Bermuda Restaurants, added.

Saying Bermuda Restaurants had the opportunity to relocate Bombay somewhere else, Mr. Roach noted it would have taken a massive amount of money to renovate any new location into a restaurant and that it "just didn't seem worthwhile".

Of the eight employees at Bombay, he said Bermuda Restaurants were working with Immigration to get the non-Bermudians places in other restaurants.

The manager at Bombay, who has been in Bermuda for 20 years, will be moving to Rosa's, he said, and the Bermudian dishwasher will be moving between both Rosa's and Chopsticks. The Indian chefs, he added, were seeking other employment.

The restaurant's landlord David Rego confirmed that another restaurant would not be taking its place in the building, saying he planned to construct office space there instead.

"This was just put on me very recently," he said when asked for details, "it's going to take a good while."

Guessing it would be about six months before the renovations could begin, he said part of the "quite huge" undertakings included a new elevator in the building.

"Over the years there's been a lot of problems with having a restaurant on the top floor."

The kitchen and the bathrooms were responsible for several leaks during that time, he explained, adding: "That's one of the main reasons why I don't want a restaurant there anymore."

Observing that as soon as people found out Bombay was closing there was a flood of business to its doors, Mr. Roach said: "If they were as busy as they've been for the last month it would've been great."