A restaurant which was devastated by a fire is looking to bounce back by lodging plans to increase the number of customers it can serve.

Beefalo Meat House on Blackburn Road in Astley Bridge was damaged in a blaze on March 7 this year.

Smoke was seen coming from the building at 11am and firefighters were present until 6pm before it was handed over to the investigation unit.

The building suffered extensively damage to its roof during the blaze, which began at the back of the premises.

The restaurant was forced to close after suffering the blow.

But now the business is looking to bounce back and has applied to increase the number of customers it can have it at the same time.

The current limit is 90, but the owners have applied to increase this by 135 with an application sent to the council.

The condition that there could only be 90 customers in at a given time was made when planning permission was originally granted for the restaurant in September 2007.

A similar plan to increase the maximum capacity to 225 was launched in November 2021 and rejected last year.

But now the business is trying once more to expand.

When the owners previously launched plans to increase capacity they said an internal refurbishment had upgraded the first floor accommodation so it could be used as part of the restaurant.

In the aftermath of the fire this year, owner and chef Beyram Yuce spoke of his disappointment at what had taken place.

The blaze took place the day the restaurant was due to host a fundraiser for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey.

He said: “We are extremely sorry about the situation and especially when it’s just happened before our donation night.

“We haven’t experienced anything like this before so we don’t have much idea about the process therefore it’s hard to say what will happen next but we will try our best to open our venue back as soon as we can.

“It’s hard to say how long will it take to reopen as we haven’t even received the investigation report.”