Manchester’s food, drink and entertainment hub Freight Island is opening a major new venue at Eldon Square in Newcastle in the Autumn. It will be part of an overhaul of the district of the city and has a footprint of 60,000 square feet. Freight Island is also preparing a smaller scale venue in London called Freight Brixton.
Loungers has confirmed three openings over the course of February: the Argento Lounge in Preston, the Manzano Lounge in Rayleigh and the Saludo Lounge in Workington. It has just launched the Toledo Lounge at Merry Hill in the West Midlands—its first venue inside a covered shopping centre.
US brand Chick-fil-A has just opened at the Lisburn South motorway service station in Northern Ireland—its first of many planned openings in the UK. Another franchised opening is to follow at the Templepatrick service station next month. Both stations are operated by Applegreen, which runs various Chick-fil-A branches in the US. Chick-fil-A’s opening plans in England include Leeds, Liverpool and London. The group has around 2,800 sites in the US.
ETM’s Sports London group is opening a flagship new two-floor sports bar on Shaftesbury Avenue off Piccadilly Circus in London.
Blackwood is the eighth site for the group, after Shoreditch, Westfield, Victoria, Angel, Liverpool Street, London Bridge and Bank.
The Nightcap group is opening in Brighton after acquiring the lease of the city’s i360 Tower. The tower has various bar, café and restaurant spaces as well as an observation platform.
The Brother Marcus eastern Mediterranean restaurant group is launching at One Canada Square in London’s Canary Wharf in the Summer. It will be its biggest site so far and its sixth in total, after Angel, Borough Yards, Covent Garden, South Kensington and Spitalfields.
US brand Wingstop is opening its first restaurant in Liverpool in the Spring. It has signed for a 3,000 square feet unit with 50 covers on Lord Street at the Liverpool ONE development. Wingstop opened 18 restaurants around the UK in 2024 and has just launched its first of 2025 on Wind Street in Swansea.
Japanese ramen brand Maki & Ramen has submitted plans to open in an empty unit at the Highcross shopping centre in Leicester, local media report. It currently has ten restaurants in the UK, including four in Edinburgh, where it first launched nine years ago. 
Street food market group Kerb is part of a team opening a new food hall, events space, cafe and urban indoor farm on Maritime Street at Canada Water in the Spring. It will be called Corner Corner.
Popeyes is opening a restaurant at the St Nicholas Centre in Sutton, according to local media. It is meanwhile due to launch at the Broadway centre in Bradford next week.
Yorkshire-based Italian restaurant brand Pranzo is opening on Church Street in York in the Spring. It has taken on a unit previously occupied by YO! Sushi. York will be a fourth location for Pranzo, which already has restaurants in Harrogate, Horsforth and Ilkley.
North Wales based restaurant group Dylan’s is opening a fifth site in Barmouth in April. The other four sites are in Menai Bridge, Criccieth, Llandudno and Conwy.
The Merchant Pubs & Bars group has acquired another venue in Glasgow, local media report—The Drake pub on Lynedoch Street in the Kelvingrove area.
Zhangliang Malatang, a Sichuan Chinese hotpot restaurant group with nearly 6,000 sites, is opening on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow as it continues a rollout in the UK, local media report.
Five Guys has set 17 February for the opening of its latest new restaurant at the Kingswood leisure park in Hull. It will be a drive-through location with a breakfast offer.
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To read the previous new openings round-up, click here.
