What's happening at Totland Pier? September 2023 update

Totland Pier will hopefully open as a restaurant for Easter 2024

We wrote an update a while ago about Totland Pier, which has been undergoing a transformation in recent years. Prior to that it was looking pretty holey and at risk of going the same way as the piers in Shanklin and Ventnor.

Things have been a bit quiet in the last few weeks, but we’ve recently spoken to the company which owns Totland Pier and have cobbled together a bit more of an update. All of this is subject to change but it’s good to know things are progressing.

Totland Pier (including both of the new buildings) is now owned by the Wooldridge Group, which is based in Surrey. Google suggests they are a demolition company but they do various things, including hospitality, property development and er, roadsweepers. Their hospitality experience is as the parent company of Seasons Kitchen and Farm Shop in Surrey.

The company bought Totland Pier in November 2022 from the people who were behind the redevelopment. They are the same people who are revamping the Albion in Freshwater and who own the highly-rated Sentry Mead Hotel in Totland.

At the moment, the big new building at the wet end of the pier is just an empty shell. The new owners told me that they hope to start working on it this winter with a view to opening it at Easter 2024. They told us that it would serve lunch and dinner and that it would be open all year (with some closures in the depths of winter likely to give staff a break). There are 20 moorings at the end of the pier so that people could sail across to use the restaurant. 

In January, there were news reports that an application was turned down to convert the Bay Café into ‘five short-stay holiday rental rooms’. This is the building at the dry end of the pier which opened for one season and quickly became a popular place for dining with a sunset.

Sophie from the Wooldridge Group told me that the plan was for ‘hotel rooms’ for guests who would dine at the new restaurant at the wet end of the pier. They plan to put another application in.

Anyway, I hope that update is of some interest. Hopefully we can soon add the new restaurant to our places to eat with a sea view.

I'm currently putting together an updated drone video of Totland Pier, filmed in August 2023. Until then, here are some screenshots of how it currently looks.

The new owners plan to start fitting out the restaurant in November 2023

The new owners want to turn the Bay Cafe into 'hotel rooms' for the restaurant

The end of the pier has moorings for 20 yachts and boats