New owners pledge to keep famous Edinburgh joke shop open despite ex-staff fears

New owners of a popular city joke shop have pledged to keep it open, amid fears from former staff that it was to close for good.

Ah Ha Ha Jokes & Novelties, famous for its iconic comedy nose and glasses signage, was put up for sale after long-time owners Bill and Cathi Cowan announced their retirement last year.

The Landa family, which owns a string of souvenir shops in the Old Town, purchased the Cowans’ West Bow business in January, including around £40,000 worth of stock.

Unfortunately, while the shop was closed and undergoing a refit, the coronavirus epidemic hit, forcing the Landas to grind their business empire to a halt and lay off staff.

The situation was certainly no laughing matter for the joke shop’s three full-time members of staff who were told to look for alternative employment.

Former shop manager Zak Riding said his redundancy had come as a shock, and claimed the Landas had been lax on communication.

He said: “I had received a phone call from one of the girls I worked with to say that the new owners had come in and started removing stock. Even though I was the manager, they didn’t really like to keep me in the loop.

“When the lockdown came into effect, they basically told us we are all being made redundant and that was it.

“They’re not very forthcoming with communication in any form.”

Zak, who is now running his own online joke shop with former West Bow colleagues, added that he had initially feared the Cowans’ old shop would never reopen in its present form and that the Landas were planning to transform it into a souvenir shop filled with all manner of tartanalia.

However, the Landas have insisted that this is not the case and have pencilled in a reopening date for early next month.

They say the shop will be repainted, while the famous Groucho Marx nose and glasses signage - beloved of locals and tourists for many years - will stay put.

In a short statement to the Evening News, the Landa family said: “The shop will be opening as a joke shop under the Ah Ha Ha name, on the 6th of July.”

Former owner Bill Cowan, who established the joke shop with his wife in the mid-nineties, said he is pleased Ah Ha Ha would continue, and that, while he sympathises with ex-staff members who lost their jobs, he understands the Landas had faced an unprecedented challenge and needed to act to save their businesses.

He said: “I’m very pleased they’re going to try it. I’m sorry they probably won’t get Zak on board, because he’s a font of knowledge.

“But in some respects they’re right. In business, when you relaunch something, it’s not wise to keep on all the old staff, because they’ve got all the old ideas. I have some sympathy with that.”

Mr Cowan added that, with the tourist season badly hampered by the Covid-19 crisis, the joke shop likely represented the Landa family’s one solid chance of turning a profit this year, particularly in the run up to Halloween.

He said: “The family’s model, the gift shops and the tartan, tweed, whisky and all that, that’s not going to pick up any time soon. So, I think they’ll probably make a good fist of the joke shop this year.”

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