Edinburgh pubs: Trendy new Edinburgh bar closes weeks after opening and faces 'struggle to stay alive’

Ruma, a specialist rum bar on Broughton Street, opened on March 29. But less than a month later, on April 19, the stylish venue was forced to shut after their electricity meter was removed from the premises.

Owners Jamie Shields and Steve Aitken say they still don't have a reopening date yet – but are “still hanging on and fighting”.

Speaking about the nightmare situation on Facebook, they wrote: “To give a little context to what's happened, on 19th April we arrived at the bar to set up to find that the electricity meter had been removed by the electricity supplier without warning, as the previous tenant had racked up a huge bill and left it unpaid.

Ruma, a specialist rum bar on Broughton Street in Edinburgh, opened on March 29 - but was forced to close just weeks later. The owners don't know exactly when it will reopen.

“After just three weeks of being open, we were forced to close our doors. We then spent five weeks trying to convince the supplier that we were not responsible for this debt, and eventually after satisfying them, we sought another supplier to install a new meter. On the day the new supplier contract started, we called them to arrange an install, only to discover that they were in dispute with their contractors and were not scheduling any new meter installs at present”.

The pair say they are now awaiting the new supplier to begin scheduling new installations, which will hopefully commence in the next week or two.

“We are working every day to find some other workaround to the issue to get up and running again as soon as possible, and will update you further when we have more to share”, they added.

“We appreciate your support thus far, and we'll continue to scrap and fight to ensure we're still around to bring back those glorious busy first few weeks. And trust us, when we do, we're gonna have a big f****** party”.

Ruma – Scots Gaelic for Rum – is said to be home to over 100 bottles of the spirit. Perfect for rum lovers, the bar, which moved into the space which formerly belonged to Treacle, also offers a high-quality range of signature cocktails including deliciously inventive twists on classic rum serves.