‘The Bilash will always survive’: Wolverhampton restaurant looks to future after challenging years

The owner of an award-winning and high-quality Wolverhampton restaurant has spoken about challenges for the business, but also about celebration plans and hopes for the future.

Mo Khan said the last few years had been challenging for him and the Bilash on Cheapside following the Covid-19 pandemic and less traffic in and around the city centre.

However, as the restaurant prepares to mark 47 years on the site since it was opened by his father Sitab in 1980, Mr Khan said the restaurant would be putting on a celebration for a long overdue anniversary in January.

He said: “We haven’t been able to celebrate our 40th anniversary because of the pandemic and because I wanted to make sure that my parents were safe and well, so that meant more well-being for them and family time, and we had a two-and-a-half year break.

“We meant to celebrate in 2020 and we were planning, but never got around to it, but we are now ready to get to it in January.

“We are hoping to invite all our loyal guests who have supported us over the last 46 years to join us for an extravagant Bangladeshi festival dinner, which will include a complementary Murghi Roast, as a way of saying thank you to them all.”

Mr Khan said he hoped the celebration could help to bring more eyes on the restaurant which, he said, had been suffering from a decline over the last few years since he fully reopened in 2023.

He said he felt said decline had been part of a general decline in people coming to the city centre.

He said: “We’ve been feeling the decline over the last several years and we’d hoped that the Civic and Wulfrun Halls, when they reopened, would bring more people in, but there’s been a decline in that.

“We get people in on Wolves matchdays and when there’s a big concert on at the Civic or a show at the Grand Theatre and we do get a lot of custom from outside the city, showing that people have done their research.

“However, our lunch time trade has completely declined because of hybrid working and less people working in the city centre and the city centre roadworks and bus works were a huge problem as well.”

Sitab Khan said he has continued to keep a positive mindset, saying that he had every faith that the restaurant would continue to be part of the city for years to come, and spoke about his own hopes for the celebratory event.

He said: “When I first came to Wolverhampton, my aims were to serve people authentic food, what I would call my mother’s food, and I worked really hard to convert people in Wolverhampton to this and we’ve had great success since.

“This has been part of the family and I have seen generation after generation come to this place because of the food that we serve, as it’s like nowhere else in England and I always make sure that if it suits me, then I will serve it to my guests.

“I will make every effort to be here in January to cook for people and my priority now is not the money, but more the people and their happiness and enjoyment and ensuring they enjoy authentic Bangladeshi food, as we will never compromise on quality of food and will always ensure it is fresh.”

For Mo Khan, the hard work continues for the restaurant, which has won prestigious Michelin, AA and Hardens awards, but he is also confident that the restaurant will survive and thrive.

He said: “I still want to celebrate what we have got and want to continue having the Bilash brand in the city centre.

“We are a huge part of Wolverhampton and we get a lot of support from other businesses and institutions.

“The name speaks for itself, the family speaks for itself and the Bilash will always survive, I guarantee that.”