BRIGHTON'S threatened bikers' haunt, The Waterfront Cafe and Bar, has been saved for the summer.

It will be kept open while receivers try to sell the seafront venue. The cafe and pub on Madeira Drive, hugely popular as a meeting place, is being run by Marpletime on behalf of receivers Begbie Traynor. It follows the collapse of management firm Maingrand Ltd, which ran the Waterfront for 16 months, developing it as a bikers' haunt attracting visitors from all over Britain and the Continent. Maingrand, with its showbiz connections - Noel Janus, the father of actress Samantha Janus, and TV producer Des Cox were two of its four directors - went into receivership earlier this month. The other two directors were Bev Robbins, landlord of the Hand in Hand, Kemp Town, Brighton, and businessman Robert Shove. The cafe was closed for three weeks but opened again last Sunday for the 61st Vintage Motorcycle Pioneer Run and has remained open since. Begbie Traynor has pledged to keep the cafe going until a buyer is found. John Eddleston, one of the managers at Begbie Traynor, said: "We are selling the Waterfront as an on-going concern. We will try and sell it as quickly as possible but we will also keep it open for as long as we can." Des Cox, one of the previous Waterfront management said: "It is nice that all the hard work that we have put in will not be entirely wasted. "We could have carried on trading because we would have been in profit. "We were taken out just at the wrong time. For the sake of £10,000, we could have kept it going. "It needs a lot of expertise but I am sure whoever does buy it will be able to make a go of it."

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