A POPULAR Bournemouth café has reopened following a makeover from its new owners.

Brothers Ed and Rob Watts, who have taken over Flirt Café in the Triangle, previously ran their own B&B in West Dorset.

The pair have carried out extensive renovation works to restore the cafe to its former glory.

Ed said: “The renovation process was pretty hellish, there was a lot to be done, a lot of money on a lot of things that people can’t see like electrics and stuff to bring it up to a standard that we can operate at, but we opened on July 24, the first day of the summer holidays and the mayor of Bournemouth came.”

Speaking about the reaction from the Bournemouth community following the reopening, he said: “We’ve had a great reaction from the local community and we’ve had quite a few people that haven’t been to Flirt in a while, come back and give us a go, which we’ve been really grateful for. We hope that people realise that we are still new and we are still growing and we are not perfect as yet but we will get stronger and as time goes on our menus will change and we’ll start offering more.”

“So far it’s been really good though, opening during the middle of a global pandemic in the middle of the school holidays has been a very interesting experience but we’re getting there, we’re mid-way through August and it’s going very well so far. We’ve still got lots to do, there’s more vinyls and more plantings, so this is not the Flirt we’ll have in six months’ time, we can only get better and stronger.”

The café will be stay open late on Saturday night (August 21) for the Bourne Free festival which will be taking place in the Triangle for the last time, before in moves to Meyrick Park next year.