Sambuca Whitley Bay

About

Sambuca Whitley Bay holds a 5 out of 5 food hygiene rating, shuts 3pm to 5pm on weekdays and stops serving at 8pm on a Sunday, and books on 0191 252 6242. It is the Whitley Bay branch of the North East Italian chain Sambuca Restaurants, at 2A-4 Park Avenue, NE26 1DG, on the corner by the Park Avenue shops. Opening hours are noon to 3pm and 5pm to 9.30pm Monday to Thursday, noon to 3pm and 5pm to 10pm on Friday, noon to 10pm on Saturday and noon to 8pm on Sunday, so Sunday evening is the one to watch: the kitchen stops two hours earlier than the rest of the week. The 5 rating was awarded by North Tyneside Council on 7 November 2025, with top marks for structure and for confidence in management, under the registered name Cafe Sambuca WhitleyBay. The group has been serving Italian food in the North East since 2001 and also has restaurants at North Shields, Percy Main, Forest Hall, Heaton Park, West Allotment, Wallsend and South Shields, with newer openings at Boldon and Morpeth. One practical note, and it has got worse rather than better. As of 24 September 2026 the chain's own website is largely down: the Whitley Bay branch page, the Restaurants index and the Contact page at sambucarestaurants.co.uk all return HTTP 500 and a WordPress critical error message instead of any content, eight days after we first recorded the fault on 16 September. Only the homepage still loads. That matters because there is no online booking here even when the site works: listings for the branch state that tables must be booked over the phone, so 0191 252 6242 is the only route to a table. The trading company is SAMBUCA WHITLEY BAY LTD, company number 10580023, incorporated on 24 January 2017 and registered at the restaurant address under SIC 56101, licensed restaurants. Checked on 24 September 2026 it was active with neither accounts nor confirmation statement overdue, so the website failure is an IT problem rather than a sign of anything wider.