A FORMER restaurant in Carlisle that was recently used as a cannabis farm is set to go under the hammer.

The former Bari Restaurant, on West Tower Street, will be up for grabs at an auction on May 25, with a guide price indicated as £35,000.

The auction will take place at The Halston Hotel, led by Auction House Cumbria.

The 3,300 square foot property, which looks onto Carlisle Castle, ran into a labour staff shortage in the middle of the Covid pandemic in 2021 when operating as the restaurant Bari, resulting in its closure.

It was originally established as The Balti Kitchen before the millennium.

Iftikar Hussain, a local growing up in the city whose first family members set up the initial restaurant at the beginning of the property’s life, said: "This former admired restaurant was staffed by Bangladeshi-British workers.

"Before now, it was difficult to even begin to recruit hospitality staff within the British market of job seekers in this particular field of expertise. 

"The restaurant was run under two families’ ownership, when the city was flourishing in popularity with Cumbria’s tourism sector back in those years, when the population was growing,” he said.

To find out more about this property, call the team at Auction House on 01228 510 552.

The property, which is currently in a derelict state, was discovered to be housing cannabis worth an estimated £500,000 earlier this year, resulting in three arrests being made.