A popular restaurant serving American-style meat dishes has closed with the loss of five staff.

Owner Graham Fryer has closed Smokey’s Original at St James Street, Batley, after a planned move to new premises fell through.

A post on Facebook said that “after some soul searching” they had decided to “hang up our aprons and call it a day”.

The restaurant is now up for sale along with its equipment.

Mr Fryer, 43, said the plan had been to move to a restaurant in Scholes, Cleckheaton, which would allow Smokey’s to serve alcohol.

Despite negotiations to make the move, the owner of the property had unexpectedly assigned the lease to someone else.

He said: “We started preparing for the move but a couple of days before we were expecting to get the keys the lease was sold to someone else.”

Mr Fryer said: “The restaurant was stunning and we were hoping to take it up to the next level. We have had to let the staff go, there was nothing else we could do.”

Smokey’s had established an excellent reputation with diners for its burgers, ribs and fried chicken dishes – served up to a background of 80s music.