A shack with a guest list

Beach Wadiya is a simple seafood restaurant on a Colombo beach. It has fed Princess Anne, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and a long line of famous names since 1974.

Ten days to disappear

Sri Lanka's Coast Conservation Department gave Wadiya 10 days to pack up or face demolition. The deadline passed on September 10 and the restaurant is still standing.

The ten-metre rule

The government wants nothing built within 10 metres of the shoreline. Seven neighbouring beach properties got about four extra days just to pull out their furniture.

“There shouldn't be any buildings within the 10-metre coastal reservation from the shoreline.”

Eighty-two on the list

Environment Minister Dammika Patabendi says 82 premises have been identified for removal. A few shops near Wadiya were already knocked down last month.

“We have identified 82 such premises and we are taking steps to remove them.”

The only one fighting

Every other flagged business is complying. Wadiya filed a writ in the Court of Appeal, arguing it opened seven years before the 1981 Coast Conservation Act existed.

“We built in 1974, which predates the law that they were talking about... We have permits dating all the way back to 1974.”

Two weeks of breathing room

The court ordered the department not to demolish anything for two weeks while it hears the case. Director Suhara Chandrasekera, 26, is the founder's granddaughter.

The sea got there first

The irony is that erosion is already eating the restaurant. Wadiya has lost two huts and part of its bathroom, and the coconut trees that once lined the beach are gone.

“Right now we have lost two of our huts... We've lost parts of our bathroom due to sea erosion.”

Not the tourists' fault

Experts point the finger at large-scale land reclamation further north near Colombo port, not at the shacks. Wadiya added an upper floor as the beachfront shrank beneath it.

A guestbook lost to the tsunami

Richard Branson signed it during a 1992 family holiday. The December 2004 tsunami washed it away. Princess Anne dined here in 1995, as did Nepali royals and Wasim Akram.

Cook me tender

One wall holds a Financial Times cartoon of a guitar-playing lobster from a 1994 review. Diners still pick their fish from a platter and say how they want it cooked. No air conditioning, tables on sand.

Back to the beginning

If the court lets it stay, Chandrasekera says Wadiya will end up where it started, back when the beach was wide and it had no neighbours at all.

“The only restaurant on the strip.”