Popular Yeovil Kazbar cocktail bar confused with similarly named dessert restaurant

A popular cocktail bar in Yeovil town centre says they are losing customers as they battle against a glitch on Facebook because another similarly named business is sharing posts on its Facebook page. Kazbar Cocktail Bar, based on South Western Terrace, has served drinks and more for several years in the town centre and helped celebrate countless nights out.

But the business has seen posts from nearby restaurant Kaspa’s Desserts appear on its own Facebook feed. The result has seen its owner Matt Thackwell receive messages from frustrated customers, lose trade and spend countless hours trying to resolve the issue.

Somerset Live has approached Facebook owner Meta for a statement, but did not receive a response. Matt said the bizarre problem started in February 2022 when someone from the nearby business Kaspa’s Desserts used a setting within Facebook to connect their page with Kazbar's page, quite possibly by accident.

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He explained this initially caused Kazbar's contact details, cover photo and opening hours to convert to Kaspa's, and Matt has to now manually change back every month. Bizarrely, Kaspa's posts also are shared on Kazbar's Facebook page and it is causing a lot of confusion.

He said: “My theory is because our business’ names are similar and locations are similar, they (Facebook) have connected our pages and Facebook has taken action with the algorithm or automatic thing has happened.

“It is surely some connection almost deep within Facebook and it is just odd. One thing Facebook did is that no one else can post on your page. They talked me through it and ensured no one else could share onto our page.

“They assured me that this change would ensure Kaspa’s were no longer able to post on our page. Unfortunately, this did not resolve the issues, as the next day we noticed that Kaspa’s ‘Pancake Day’ post was at the top of our page. Strangely as an admin, we cannot see these posts and therefore cannot delete them."

The glitch has not only frustrated Matt, but also his customers. They are frustrated and annoyed at the posts and crossposting and it has caused his business to lose trade and awareness on social media.

He added: “The main issue is that almost all our customers see Kaspa's posts on our feed. That annoys them. We get messages about this like 'are you connected to Kaspas' and 'why are we getting posts like this'. We apologise and say it’s more frustrating for us.

“It is not the Yeovil branch’s fault but a glitch in the system or wires crossed. It’s not Kaspa’s fault. It is frustrating for our customers as they don’t see our posts and see irrelevant posts, and it is frustrating as every month or two we have to transfer contract info as it’s transferred to Kaspa’s. We are spending too much time on this. It’s very frustrating. It is a very strange scenario.”

Matt has regularly sought help from Facebook about this issue but has been unable to receive an answer as to why this has happened. They were convinced that because nobody from Kaspas was an admin on the page and Matt must have resolved the issue at some point, and therefore there was nothing to change.

The issues have caused Matt to create a new Facebook page but he is now struggling to regain the 7,500 followers he has on his original page. He added: “Times are hard in hospitality to then be made harder with this.

“It’s our main way to get information to the public and our customers. We have a really big presence with 7,500 followers and we even have posts with 10,000 likes. Years ago it was much more. But these issues have an effect.“