A MUSSELBURGH butcher’s shop, renowned locally for its steak pies, has closed due to staffing issues and family pressures.

Keith Stewart, 56, owner of Aytoun’s in the High Street, told the Courier that the shop’s manager of 18 years moved to another job, giving his contractual week’s notice.

Mr Stewart himself was about to go on a business trip abroad and took the “regrettable decision” to close due to a set of circumstances which had resulted in him running the family’s main butcher’s shop and fishmonger in Dalkeith.

He told the Courier: “There has really been a whole range of stuff that has happened.”

He said the manager at the Dalkeith shop was off work for five months following an accident while on a golfing holiday abroad but had now returned to duties.

Mr Stewart’s pregnant wife Irina was no longer able to manage the fishmonger shop because of her condition, and was now working at the butcher’s in Dalkeith.

He said: “I have been trying to run the Dalkeith shops and then the manager in Musselburgh left.”

Mr Stewart said he also had to make regular trips to Estonia to visit his twins from a previous marriage.

He said: “It has been getting too much. There has been a whole build up of staffing pressures and family commitments.”

He said he decided to close the shop in the Honest Toun, which he bought from George Bonthron around seven years ago, because he “did not have the confidence” to run with a new manager in the build-up to his wife having their baby at the shop’s busiest time at Christmas.

“There is not enough of us to cater for people who want our service and I couldn’t be sure that we could keep Musselburgh going,” he said.

Mr Stewart’s father James bought the Gorebridge butcher’s branch from John Aytoun in the 1960s, and the fishmonger’s shop at Jarnac Court in Dalkeith from John Banks.

The pies are made at the Gorebridge premises.

Mr Stewart said: “We have butchers who hand cut the stew and then we have a pie chef who cooks it. They are very, very particular about not getting gristle or fat in the pie. It’s our defence against supermarkets. We buy our meat from the Borders area at St Boswell’s.”

He added: “I would like to thank all my customers in Musselburgh for their support over the years. We have very much appreciated it and would welcome them at our Dalkeith shop.”