Business owners pay tribute to the owner of beloved cafe Deansgate Kitchen in Blackpool.after his sudden death
The community has paid tribute to beloved Deansgate Kitchen owner Jonathan Kaye after he collapsed and died suddenly aged just 59.
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00:00Hello, my name's Luke Patrick, I'm a journalist for the Blackpool Gazette.
00:04There's been an outpouring of emotion after the business owner of the Deansgate kitchen, Jonathan Kaye,
00:09collapsed in the town centre and tragically passed away.
00:13Many local business owners have paid tribute to Mr Kaye, and this is what they had to say.
00:19So how did you know that it was Jonathan Kaye from the three-digit number?
00:24To be fair, it wasn't so much knowing him, it was more, you know, passing him and saying hello in the morning.
00:31He seemed like a very nice fella, happy to interact with anybody.
00:36Yeah, it was more just a polite, you know, hello, have a good day sort of thing.
00:44You said just before that he was like the first person there at the last minute,
00:52Yeah, absolutely. So I usually arrive about 8.15 every day, and he was there,
00:59and you could see he'd been there for, easy, half an hour to an hour before I'd even got to work,
01:05and I considered me getting home quite early.
01:08And then I usually go round to the shop there at, say, three, four o'clock to get a little drink.
01:13Still there, last one locking the door, sending his sign round, and off he goes.
01:18Obviously a hard worker, everybody round here said the same thing, you know.
01:21He was always there, he was very much a sort of mainstay of Deansgate, Topping Street, Edward Street.
01:30Yeah, yeah, the amount of regulars, you know, you could walk past there any day,
01:34you'd see the same people sitting there eating, you know.
01:36They obviously weren't sure the food would do half of that job,
01:40but I think he was definitely a big reason as well that they would be there.
01:49So what was it like to describe him?
01:55Good, yeah, he was always clean, he was well kept, you know, he did what he did, and he did it well.
02:00He was obviously passionate about his business, and, you know, it's a shame really.
02:05It really is a shame, because unfortunately,
02:08not many people are proud of what they do nowadays around here,
02:11because of the reputation Blackpool's got, but with places like that,
02:14and people like Jonathan that, you know, may potentially not be a business there anymore,
02:19it really is a shame, so.
02:26Polite, can I just use hard-working as one word?
02:30Polite, hard-working, mainstay.
02:34So how did you know Jonathan Kaye and the Deansgate kitchen business?
02:41Just through fellow traders, really.
02:45He used to wave at me every morning when I went past in my car.
02:49He's just friendly, really, you know, friendly competition.
02:55Did you go to the Deansgate kitchen frequently?
02:59I didn't go in, because obviously I've got my own business here, so.
03:07I've chatted to him on many occasions, yeah.
03:11What did he, how did he seem? How would you describe him?
03:16He's a very nice man.
03:19Seems to have had his, he's got his head screwed on.
03:22He seems to know what he's doing.
03:27Yeah, could be a bit fiery at times, but, you know, he's just a, yeah, nice person.
03:35Yeah, how did you find out?
03:39Well, one of his, a customer came in a couple of weeks ago and said,
03:45Jon from the Deansgate kitchen only does me two hash browns, a slice of toast and a fried egg and a glass of milk for £4.
03:53Can you, could you do the same for me?
03:55So I said, yeah, yeah, of course I can.
03:57I said, well, why are you not in Deansgate kitchen then?
03:59He said, he's died.
04:03So he's been coming in here ever since.
04:05Yeah.
04:07What, you said quite a lot of customers have been coming in here, coming in here from the Deansgate kitchen, like you just said.
04:13What have you been hearing from them about the situation or how they're reacting to it or anything like that?
04:18Well, Paul used to own the barbershop across the road, was very good friends with Jon and his family.
04:29So when I put the tribute on Facebook, he phoned me straight away and said, Robert, is this true? Is this true?
04:34So I said, yes, I've just been told.
04:38So he said, I'll have to go, I'll have to ring his wife and find out what happened.
04:42Later on that day, he told me that Jon had collapsed in Cedar Square.
04:48Paramedics brought him around and then he died of a blood clot to the heart later on.
04:55Do you know when this was? Do you know the date?
04:57I don't. It's got to be at least two weeks, a couple of weeks ago, yeah.
05:08How would you describe him?
05:13By the way, I just want to make it clear, obviously, for the subject matter, if you need to take a minute or pause the interview or anything like that, that's perfectly fine.
05:22But if you were to describe him in three words, what would they be?
05:31Just a genuine nice businessman.
05:52So is this going to be on the radio or something?
05:57This will be an article on the website and then this will be a video that will be compiled with a couple of other things and added to the hospital as well.
06:05You mentioned just before we started this that he was planning to put balloons up.
06:11Yeah, well, the salad bowl, the veg shop here, I've chatted to them about Jon dying and stuff.
06:21And he said, yeah, he was planning for his 60th to put balloons inside a cafe.
06:29But he was 59 and he never made it.