There are new site plans this week from brands including The Stable, Itsu, Loungers, Purecraft, Grand Union, Zizzi, Bill’s, Wetherspoon, Prezzo, CAU and Miller & Carter as 2016’s brisk pace of openings continues.
The Stable, the pizza and cider business majority owned by Fuller’s, has set April for the opening of its first London site in Whitechapel.
Itsu is opening on Commercial Street in Leeds in mid-March. It continues an expansion beyond London, and follows an opening in Manchester earlier this year.
The Birmingham-based Purecraft Bar & Kitchen concept (pictured) is to launch a second site in Nottingham. It is working on a refurb of a site on St Peter’s Gate in the city, and plans to open on 21 March, the Nottingham Post reports. The brand wants to get to six or seven sites in due course.
Loungers opened the Concho Lounge in Newquay yesterday (24 February).
London bar group Grand Union is launching a new coffeehouse, cocktail bar and barbershop concept called Bean + Cocktail + Razor in Wapping this June. The coffeeshop element will be provided by speciality brand Vagabond, and the barbershop service by the Drakes of London grooming brand. Grand Union will provide the bar and food, including sourdough pizzas. It will be a 6,700 square feet space on Thomas More Square, between St Katharine’s Dock and the new London Docks development.
Zizzi opens on Brindley Place in Birmingham today (25 February), and also has launches lined up in Bradford, Leeds Birstall, Newport and Dublin—the last marking its first move into the Republic of Ireland. The openings will take Zizzi’s estate in the UK and Ireland to 143. Around ten openings are planned this year in all.
Bill’s has applied to open a new site in Canterbury, Kent Online reports. It would be a 150-cover restaurant on the site of an old jeweller’s shop.
JD Wetherspoon opened two new pubs in East Kilbride and Portishead this week, with more to follow in the next few months in Beverley, Newton-le-Willows, Edinburgh and Formby. Six more sites—in Northolt, Chatham, Largs, Wellington, Okehampton and Huntingdon—will go into development over the next week.
Prezzo has just opened in Poulton in Lancashire.
CAU will soon open on Brindleyplace in Birmingham. It has taken a 136-cover restaurant with bar space.
Miller & Carter is continuing its wave of expansion with openings in Warrington and Chester in the summer. Mitchells & Butlers is also planning to convert one of its pubs in Thornhill in Cardiff into a Miller & Carter.
Ruth & Robinson, the New York style bar and restaurant concept backed by the Imbiba Partnership, is to open a second venue at the Black Cap pub in Camden.
The Richoux group’s Dean’s Diner concept will open a ninth restaurant in Yate in Gloucestershire in May.
Individual Restaurants and SSP have opened their first restaurant in partnership with celebrity chef Gino D’Campo, at London’s Euston station. The ‘Gino D’Acampo – My Restaurant’ venture launched at Manchester’s Corn Exchange a couple of months ago, but the alliance with SSP marks a step up in ambitions for the brand. Individual has meanwhile announced a new 250-cover Restaurant Bar & Grill restaurant in Alderley Edge, and an overhaul of its Piccolino on Clarence Street in Manchester into a food hall-style operation called Caffé Grande by Piccolino.
The MW Eat group has relaunched its Masala Zone on Marshall Street in Soho. The restaurant was the brand’s first site and has now been revamped as a 140-cover restaurant, with upgrades to interior design, tableware, presentation and uniforms, plus a new ‘Bangle Bar’ for cocktails and private dining area.
