Monday
Propelinfonews.com: G&D Ventures buys Animal Inns sites: G&D Ventures, which is the vehicle of business partners Gregory Adjemian and Daniel Smith and operates the Bib Gourmand-recognised Ingham Swan, near Stalham, Norfolk, has bought independent restaurant group Animal Inns in a deal that will see it take control of The Wildebeest Arms at Stoke Holy Cross, and The Mad Moose on Warwick Street, Norwich. Adjemian said: “We have a solid and achievable plan to grow significantly our business. We’re committed to investing in Norfolk (and) we’ve got real purpose and the talent in our team to back this up. Through this acquisition, we are putting a firm stake in the ground. We’re hungry and driven by our plans. Both The Wildebeest and The Mad Moose are located in prime locations and we feel we can add value to both sites to take them to the next level.” Smith, chef patron at The Ingham Swan, spent ten years at The Mad Moose and The Wildebeest Arms when it was under the ownership of restaurateur Henry Watt. He previously worked for Michel Roux Jr’s Le Gavroche in London and Galton Blackiston’s Morston Hall, where he earned a Michelin star whilst head chef at the age of 23.
Propelinfonews.com: ‘Around the world’ bar 80 Days Bier Haus opens in Hull: A bar promising to bring beers from around the world to the doorsteps of local residents opened in Princes Avenue, Hull, on Saturday (18 April). The 80 Days Bier Haus has been started by Andrew Murphy and wife Karla Wiseman Murphy and will be serving beer from places including Spain, Germany, Japan, Laos, Belgium and the Netherlands. Andrew Murphy told The Hull Daily Mail: “It’s always been my dream to have my own place and I figured now is the time to start my own venture. When I’m travelling, I am always trying local beer and often think to myself, ‘I wish I could get this back home’. I am sure others feel this too and now 80 Days Bier Haus will bring that to their doorstep.” Karla Murphy said: “The feel of the bar has been inspired by our travels throughout Europe and the US. We are a place to come to try something you don’t see everywhere else. We feel we are bringing something unique and different. The taste for different beers has been increasing in popularity over a good number of years. Craft beer bars have been opening in most other major towns and cities all over the UK, but the people of Hull can now taste world beers in their home town.” The premises were previously The Boar’s Nest restaurant.
Northampton Chronicle: Frank’s burger restaurant set to open in Northamptonshire ‘later this month’: A chain of a Northamptonshire restaurants will open its latest new premises in the next few weeks, the owner has said.Tom Hewer is opening Frank’s Hamburger House in a listed building in Watling Street,Towcester and is installing the final items into what was formerly an Indian restaurant. He said: “Aside from some of the names of the dishes, the menu is what has worked well at our other burger restaurants.”It’s proving popular because everything from our chips to our barbecue sauce is made here from scratch and I think that gives people confidence they will get good quality.” Empty for about two years, the new premises were taken on by Mr Hewer a year ago but he has been concentrating on opening other ventures, including one under the Steakhouse brand at The Sevens pub in St James and the rebranded Artizan pub in Abington. The finishing touches at the Towcester restaurant will include a bespoke grill, which will be placed so diners can watch the cooking happen while they wait. Handmade furniture also needs to be installed, with the opening likely to be around the end of April.
Bedfordshire-news.co.uk: Bedford’s Barns Hotel sold to Vineyard Group in £3.5m deal: BEDFORD’S historic Barns Hotel has returned private hands after a £3.5m sale to the Vineyard Group.Sir Peter Michael and Lady Michael owners of the renowned five star hotel in Berkshire, The Vineyard, and the world famous Peter Michael Winery in California, purchased the hotel in January 2015 ending several years of uncertainty for this iconic riverside property.Andrew McKenzie, Managing Director of The Vineyard Group, commented: “We are delighted to have already made some cosmetic improvements to the public areas and gardens at the Barns Hotel, and we look forward to integrating the hotel back into the Bedford community making it the first choice for wedding and individuals looking for a lovely meal in a beautiful setting.” Set in a riverside location, 2.5 miles from Bedford town centre, The Barns Hotel is made up of two Grade II listed buildings.The older is an original 13th Century red brick tithe barn with visible timber beams, while the second is a large rendered property which was built as a private residence and is the birthplace of Samuel Whitbread, founder of the brewing business, whose family retained the property until the 1890s.The hotel has a four star rating and offers 49 en suite bedrooms, a large reception lounge, a 70-cover restaurant and two bars, both with external terraces.As well as new ownership, the hotel has recently welcomed new General Manager, Nick Walley, who first joined The Vineyard Group ten years ago, and has since spent time at The Ritz in London and Chewton Glen in Hampshire.
Tuesday
Propelinfonews.com: TLC Inns to open largest Grand Central this week: TLC Inns, led by Steve and Jo Haslam, will open its fourth and largest Grand Central bar and grill at the former Quayside on the Waterfront in Ipswich this week. The opening will be one of the largest restaurants in Ipswich, seating 280 people. General manager James Thornton said: “Our main ethos is fast fresh food. There are a lot of American branded restaurants, and they are good at what they do but, for us it’s about being as authentic as we can be. We’ve worked really hard on menu development – we’re all foodies and all passionate about this style of food.” Flours have been imported from the United States for “that true taste”, TLC says, while the company claims it took six months to source the perfect cornbread supplier, and Grand Central is the only restaurant in the UK to source the special imported Southern fried seasoning it uses.
Propelinfonews.com: Restaurateurs taken to court over ‘unauthorised’ alterations to formerly derelict pub: Two restaurateurs who turned a derelict pub in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes into a thriving barbecue restaurant are being taken to court over allegedly unauthorised alterations to a listed building. Terry Pritchard and his business partner Darren Isaac have spent £100,000 since July last year turning the former Foresters Arms into the Smoke Shack. They are now facing criminal charges for what Milton Keynes Council says are “considerable unauthorised alterations” which it wants reversed. Pritchard and Isaac say the dispute is over a “50cm hole for extraction ducts”, which they claim were required by the environmental health at the council. Pritchard told the Milton Keynes Gazette: “The council is now trying to force us to remove every single piece of work done. These holes could be easily reinstated, were the equipment ever to be taken out. It is an incredibly upsetting position to be in.” A council spokesman told the Gazette: “We can confirm the investigation into the alleged unauthorised alterations and the decision to issue a Listed Building Enforcement Notice and initiate legal proceedings has at all times been conducted in accordance with our adopted enforcement policy. We are not in the habit of hindering our local businesses – quite the opposite – and we will always negotiate where possible, but on this occasion we have been left with no alternative but to pursue enforcement action.” Pritchard and Isaac are due in court on 8 May. A petition against the action being taken by Milton Keynes Council has already gathered 4,000 signatures in two days.
Insidermedia: Restaurant group calls in administrators: A South East restaurant and pub group which operates four venues in Sussex and Kent has been placed in administration but continues to trade. Simon Thomas and Nicholas O’Reilly of Moorfields Corporate Recovery were appointed joint administrators of Mountain Range Restaurants Ltd on 1 April 2015.The company’s restaurant portfolio consists of The Black Horse and The Chequers in West Sussex, The Swan in East Sussex and The Coney in Kent.The business employs approximately 80 staff across four sites and Insider has learnt that only “a handful” of redundancies have been made since the appointment.Administrators said the business will continue to trade as a going concern until a buyer is found.Mountain Range Restaurants’ venues have been designed to pay homage to its “favourite mountain dining experiences”. It said each dish on its menus have been inspired by food sampled on alpine adventures.
Propelinfonews.com: Bulldog Hotel Group appoints Andrew Guy as non-executive chairman: Independent coaching inns operator the Bulldog Hotel Group, which recently secured a £4.5m investment from the Business Growth Fund to support its planned £20 million expansion across England, has appointed Ed’s Easy Diner chief executive and Frankie & Benny’s founder Andrew Guy as non-executive chairman. He brings more than 30 years’ experience operating pub, food and restaurant chains across Europe and the US. “Food and beverage accounts for over 65% of our trade, so Andrew’s extensive experience with successful restaurant and pub-food groups in Europe and America, will add significant value to our board,” said Bulldog finance director Edward Walsh. “We set out last year with a clear goal to be the best independent operator of coaching inns in the UK and Andrew’s appointment, alongside the investment from BGF, now provides us the platform to achieve this.” Andrew Guy said: “My career has been all about great restaurant brands and successful F&B operations, so I’m delighted to be joining a Group which clearly recognises the vital importance of that offer, both for tourists and local and business trade. I hope to be able to offer industry insights and advice to support Bulldog as it expands its high quality coaching inns operation across England.” Guy is currently chief executive of Ed’s Easy Diner Holdings and has held CEO and senior board roles with Autogrill, Gourmet Holdings, City Centre Restaurants, My Kinda Town and 1776 Revolutionary Restaurants. His career in the F&B sector began with Berni Inns Group where he was a graduate trainee and area manager. Awarded Caterer Magazine’s Group Restaurateur of the Year in 2003, Guy is Director and Life Fellow of the British Hospitality Association, where he chairs the Audit Committee. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and Trustee with hospitality industry charities Springboard and Hospitality Action. Bulldog Hotel Group was recently named as one of the London Stock Exchange Group’s 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain – an annual celebration of some of the fastest-growing and most dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK. The Boston-headquartered business operates eight hotels in Yorkshire, Leicester, Lincolnshire, Northampton, Gloucestershire, County Durham and Wales.
Wednesday
Propelinfonews.com: ‘Excessive use of brandy’ caused Oxford hotel fire: A fire at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford was caused by chefs who poured too much Cognac into a saucepan. The hotel, which has been used as a set for the Inspector Morse and Lewis police TV shows, said beef stroganoff was being flambéed in the kitchen and the flames were sucked up into a vent. Hotel manager Michael Grange said early inquiries “pointed to perhaps too much cognac in a saucepan” being the cause of the fire which quickly spread to the first floor and the roof of the 150-year-old hotel. No one was injured but it’s feared the repair bill may top the £1m mark. The company that owns the Randolph, McDonald’s Hotels, said “about 95%” of the building escaped serious damage. “It was quite distressing but it could have been so much worse” said a spokesman for McDonald’s. He added that the company hopes to partially reopen the hotel, offering bed and breakfast, by the weekend.
Golf Club Management: Golf Environment Awards are now open to enter: The sports turf consultancy STRI has announced that the 2016 STRI Golf Environment Awards (GEA) are now open for entry. The prestigious awards have been running for 18 years and attract entrants from golf clubs across the whole of the UK. Each entry is independently judged, not on the size of project or financial investment, but on what a golf course has achieved and how it has benefited the environment.The awards continue to be supported by Justin Rose, the US Open Championship 2013 winner, who recently finished second in the US Masters 2015. It is also sponsored by Greenkeeping magazine, alongside Tillers Turf, Wiedenmann, Ransomes Jacobsen, Farmura, Syngenta, Golf Monthly, Operation Pollinator and BIGGA.The individual category winners for 2015 were announced in January at the Golf Environment Awards ceremony dinner in Harrogate:
•Environmental Golf Course of the Year – Royal St David’s Golf Club, Harlech in North Wales
•Conservation Greenkeeper of the Year – John Kelly, Royal Birkdale Golf Club, Southport in Lancashire
•Outstanding Environmental Project of the Year – Hockley Golf Club, Twyford in Hampshire
The three winners each received the trip of a lifetime to Portugal in March and visited some of the world’s leading golf facilities and sites of specific ecological interest.John Kelly, from Royal Birkdale Golf Club, commented on the trip: “To say the awards trip is a trip of a lifetime is an understatement! I felt totally overwhelmed by the hospitality at all the clubs and was very humbled by the whole experience. Fantastic wildlife, fantastic golf courses and fantastic people! I believe that every club should get involved because even if you don’t win think of the good you are doing trying!”
BigHospitality: Restaurants and hotels losing billions by neglecting the over 65’s
By Sophie Witts, 22-Apr-2015
The UK hospitality sector has lost at least £16bn in potential revenue over the last year by ignoring the over 65 age group, according to a report from Barclays Corporate Banking released today.
Propelinfonews.com: Cellar Door Pubs set to open pub and smokehouse in St Albans: Cellar Door Pubs, owned by John and Alan Richardson, who operate the award-winning White Horse in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, is to open a new site, Craft & Cleaver, a pub, kitchen and smokehouse concept in Catherine Street, St Albans, specialising in barbecue dishes, in May. The opening, in the former Pineapple pub, later Bar 62, comes after a £350,000 investment. A job advert says: “Everything will be made fresh – grilled, brined, marinated and smoked on-premises in our imported American smoker.”
Thursday
Propelinfonews.com: Tokyo Industries boss pleads not guilty to fire safety charges: Aaron Mellor, who owns one of the UK’s largest nightclub and bar companies, Tokyo Industries, has pleaded not guilty to nine charges of failing to comply with safety requirements. The charges arise after at fire exit door at Tokyo nightclub in Lincoln had to be kicked and broken to open it when inspected by fire officers, and fire escape doors were confirmed as “not useable”. Lincoln Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday, 21 April, that the former Silver Street venue was overcrowded in the early hours of 1April 2013. Jonathan Goulding, prosecuting on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council, said: “There were events going on in the basement and on the first floor of the building. There were over 450 people in the basement and 200 on the first floor. Experienced fire officers found that if a fire had occurred, the risk to life to the visitors was very high because they would not have been able to escape from the premises easily.
Insidermedia: Sale secures golf club future: The historic Wrangaton Golf Club in Dartmoor has been saved after it was acquired out of liquidation by a competitor. Bovey Tracey Golf Club has bought the club, which was founded in 1895, for an undisclosed sum thought to be close to the £500,000 guide price.Ian Walker, partner at business rescue and recovery specialist Begbies Traynor, was appointed liquidator of Wrangaton (South Devon) Golf Club Ltd on 29 January after the club experienced declining membership subscriptions.As a result, five members of staff were made redundant.Property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) was appointed to sell the course. It said it had received interest from as far away as Liverpool and the Home Counties, as well as enquiries from potential buyers who wanted to return the land to agricultural use.A statement from the Barter family, owners of Bovey Tracey Golf Club, said: “We see Wrangaton as complementary to Bovey Tracey, the two clubs will each retain their own identity, but members will have the opportunity for dual membership if they wish, enabling them to play both courses.
Propelinfonews.com: Cosmo £2m site opens in Nottingham after two-year delay to get offer right: The eat-all-you-can buffet chain Cosmo has opened its 17th site, a £2m venue in Nottingham, after a two-year delay to get the offer right. The new site is in Milton Street and occupies 15,000 sq ft. Cosmo’s creative director, James Brion, said: “Everything here has completely changed. Before we started the restaurant design, the first step was to reinvent how we want our customers to eat. So instead of traditional round plates for diners to pile up their food, Cosmo has small platters, based on a Japanese bento box, to stop different cuisines merging. You have your sushi but you can have your Indian curry here. It should give a better impression of buffet. Customers will have to realise you can’t pile it up high, but they can go back as many times as they like, which I think will be a little bit of an education to start with. But once people realise that they are getting better food this way and there will be a lot less waste, I think everyone is a winner.
Friday
Propelinfonews.com: Amber Taverns opens third Hogarths: Amber Taverns, the operator of community pubs led by James Baer and Bryan Wardman, has opened its third Hogarths gin palace. The new site is in Ilkeston, Derbyshire and is a conversion of the former Charter pub on South Street. Ian Eyre, landlord at the pub, said: “The concept is that it’s a gin palace. We currently have 92 gins and are hoping to get to 130. On the opening night they were selling like hot cakes. It’s basically gin and tonic but brings different flavours, with added blackcurrants for example. We also have five different tonics to make it more tasty. We even have chilli gin, people are loving it so far.” Hogarths also has a selection of ten real ales, with a cellar brewery that people can see into.
Propelinfonews.com: Charles Wells and Chris Gerard to open second Apostrophe Pubs outlet: The Bedford brewer and retailer Charles Wells is teaming up with Chris Gerard of Innventure to open a second outlet under the Apostrophe Pubs name, after the success of their first venture, the d’Parys in Bedford, a £1.3m 14-bedroom boutique hotel. The Merlin’s Cave in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire is now being turned into Apostrophe Pub’s second site, with Gerard employed once again on a consultancy basis. Craig Mayes, director for Apostrophe Pubs, said: “We are growing a collection of individual pubs which celebrate the history of their locations and the people they serve so you can expect to see chalk and oak from the Chilterns, open fires, patinas and ochre within the design at the Merlin’s Cave.” Nick Hancock, managing partner of the Merlin’s Cave said “Having just moved into Chalfont St Giles I have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest in what is happening at The Merlin’s Cave. I’ve spent a lot of time with the Apostrophe Pubs team understanding their vision for the pub; I have seen what has been achieved at d’Parys and am delighted to be a part of this exciting development.” The pub which is due to open in the summer with an exclusive preview period during which those who have registered as a Friend of The Merlin’s Cave will be offered a “first look” at the site and can enjoy 50% off food. Apostrophe Inns, which was set up to run “distinctive pubs specialising in fresh food and locally sourced artisan products” says it has a “strong pipeline” of future sites, and is hiring GMs, assistant managers and chefs .