Exeter Giraffe restaurant closes, 12 years after botched terror attack
As of November, the Exeter branch of Giraffe closed its doors for good. This chain with around-the-world cuisine has been a staple of the Princesshay shopping centre for many years, yet now is the latest in the line of the many Giraffe stores to be slashed by the parent company.
This restaurant was the site of the historic attempted bombing back in 2008. When Mohammed Saeed Alim, Islamic radical born Nicky Reilly, walked into the restaurant with three nail bombs. One of the bombs went off in the toilet, wounding only Reilly and initiating a city-centre wide lockdown. Reilly was sentenced to life imprisonment a year later and was found dead in his prison cell in 2016.
Giraffe was saved from closure in 2019 but now is to be officially closed. It will be replaced with the American chicken chain Slim Chickens. It is the first of five planned in the South West and the tenth overall in the UK.
Editor: Elen Johnston
