A STRUGGLING restaurant at Bolton's Cube student accommodation could fall victim to the huge blaze which tore through the building.

Double Tree 93 has lost all its regular customers ­— the students who were living at the stricken flats ­— and is facing mounting costs in the aftermath of the devastating blaze.

Owner Shapu Dcaruze says he and his staff worked flat-out for three days just to clean up the restaurant ­— and also had to throw away all the stock after the fire hit last month.

He said: "We can’t carry on like this. The fire has impacted everything negatively, it’s really shocking for everyone.

“We’re panicking. What’s next, I don’t know. We didn’t realise the fire would have such a big impact on our business.

"What’s the point? There’s just no business and it doesn’t look promising.”

Although the restaurant has now reopened after safety checks, the rest of the building is still vacant and the clean up effort is ongoing.

The curry house boss estimates he has lost around £2,500 in takings ­— and says he is battling to win walk-in trade when most people assume the curry house is closed.

Mr Dcaruze ploughed thousands of pounds into the fledgling business after taking over in August.

But less than three months later ­— after building up a steady stream of diners and takeaway customers ­­— his hopes for the business went up in smoke.

Mr Dcaruze now believes he has one month to save his ailing business.

He added: “I am the new owner and business has been slowly picking up since I took over, it was doing well, new customers all the time and people were recommending it.

"Suddenly, the fire happened and no there are no more customers or takeaway orders, students aren’t coming in any more.

“We’ve been open almost two weeks, with two weekends gone. Last Saturday was so quiet, it’s never usually quiet but it’s been the same all week.

“Parts of the building are still blocked off and people think that we are still closed. Students are still blocked from going in. That’s a big chunk of our revenue out of the business, we used to get so many students coming for our student discount.

“It took us three days to clean everything up from top to bottom. I had to throw away all of the stock, we had nothing after the fire, we had to start from scratch.

“I have invested so much money in advertisement and leafleting and now I am suffering for it. If it continues like this, I don’t think the restaurant can stay open. I’m giving it until the middle of January to see how it goes. If it doesn’t pick up we will have to close down."

The fire, which ripped through the student accommodation building in Bradshawgate, left scores of students with nowhere to live and prompted a major emergency response.

It could be months before students are able to move back in.

Although the restaurant has now reopened after safety checks, the rest of the building is still vacant and the clean up effort is ongoing.

An emergency fund was launched for people affected by the blaze.