M&C Report group editor Paul Charity and associate editor Mark Wingett report on this week’s chat on the pub and restaurant grapevine.
Rank gets VAT refund
Since 2006, Rank has invested significant resource in pursuing litigation to reclaim overpaid VAT - and, hurrah, had significant success. Following rulings in both the VAT Tribunal and the High Court, the company has received, from HMRC, £101.6m in refunded VAT and a further £10.7m in associated interest (before costs and increases in gross profits tax). The company has requested further repayments totalling approximately £76.0m before interest and expects to receive them in 2011. The claims are based upon the European Union’s principle of fiscal neutrality, which requires that similar products and services be taxed on a consistent basis. Rank has contended that VAT has been applied inconsistently to both games of bingo and amusement machines in Great Britain. Nice to be dipping so spectacularly into the Vatman’s pockets.
Withnail pub torn down
It’s a sad day for all fans of Withnail and I, the film that launched a thousand drinking games. There’s a famous scene set in a dodgy London pub where Richard E Grant gets a little frightened by a less-than-friendly local - “you are a perfumed ponce”. The director Bruce Robinson filmed the scene at the Tavistock Arms in Westbourne Grove, a pub that has re-emerged in several guises over the years, including Babushka. Now the pub has been torn down to make way for a block of flats - it’s hardly progress, is it?
Marston's gets organised
At the two-super-regionals, Greene King and Marstons, managed pubs have become the engine of growth with tenanted pubs and beer cash-flow providers. Diary hears that organisational changes at Marston’s will lead quite shortly to the entire tenanted estate sitting within the managed division in operational terms. It makes sense, of course.
Camino thinking Bigg
Diary hears that Blanc Brasserie director Mark Derry, who built Loch Fyne from two sites to almost 40, is helping out in a part-time consultancy role at Camino, the Spanish bar group owned by Richard Bigg. Currently operating two units in the capital under the Camino concept, the company has plans to expand to 10 sites in the next four years.
Talking Italian
Despite the trend for all things burrito at the moment in the restaurant sector (Top Gear presenters excepted), the Italian restaurant still holds sway in London, with a number of new openings taking place and planned. Pizza Express has just signed on their 10th site in the city alone, whilst Vapiano opened their second self-service pasta/pizza place at Bankside last week. New name Pasta Box will open on the former site of the Fresh Italy in Houndsditch, with a concept that is not dissimilar to its predecessor. Finally, new entrant Coco di Mama will open on Fleet Street at the end of March offering fresh Italian dishes. Whispers have reached us that this new concept is backed by one of the UK retail sector’s most high-profile businessman.
They're not burritos!
Talking of burritos, Diary was lucky to recently meet Mathew Chandry, co-founder of the hotly-tipped healthy Indian fast-food concept Mooli’s. After a pleasant conversation with the mild-mannered Mathew about expansion plans, we did notice that there was one thing that was sure to get a reaction, the mention of burritos. As the site’s marketing warns about its mooli’s product, “this is not a f***ing burrito!”. Point taken!
Mobile Canteen
Canteen, the high-quality British food concept, which has four sites in London, is set to go mobile. Diary understands that the company, which is owned by Dominic Lake and Patrick Clayton-Malone, will launch a mobile unit later this year, after it tweeted: “What has four wheels, runs on chip fat and serves great British dishes like sausages and mash and fish and chips?”
What's in a name
Tim Bacon, the entrepreneur behind Living Ventures, is not afraid to launch a new concept or a new name, witness: the Alchemist, Suburbia, Australasia; Blackhouse Grill, and Gusto. His latest concept, a coffee/deli format, currently goes under the working name “Marmalade”. But it is the possible renaming of the Olive Press site in Cheadle Hulme, that is currently causing him problems. It could be Gusto, although Bacon is looking for inspiration. “Can you think of a good name for Italian restaurant that hasn’t already been used?”, he enquires of Diary. Answers on a postcard...
Punch hires M&B staffer
How do you jump-start Chef & Brewer, the brand that suffered benign neglect for too many years? Looks like Punch’s managed division is doing it with capital expenditure - and the hiring of an experienced Mitchells & Butlers staffer. Kieran Rabbitt worked for M&B for 23 years and arrived as a regional operations director at Chef & Brewer last August. Diary hears like-for-likes are currently showing double digit growth and the bottom line is plumping up nicely.
M&B to take on lease?
And talking of Mitchells & Butlers Diary hears that its new-found flexibility on property tenure may even extend to taking on lease with a well-known tenanted pub company. Watch this space for more details.
Dylan Thomas' local to re-open
Actor Neil Morrissey has had a torrid time in the pub sector. His pub in North Yorkshire lasted little more than a year and he was part of a consortium that owned Dylan Thomas’ regular watering hole in the Carmarthenshire town of Laugharne, Browns. Alas, the hotel closed five whole years ago. But now it’s set to re-open thanks in part to the Welsh Assembly. New owner Nigel Short has been given a a grant of £230,000 towards the refurbishment of the Grade II-listed building.
The aim is to return it to how it would have looked in Thomas’s 1950s heyday. Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said Browns was “synonymous” with Thomas. Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas was a regular at Browns after he moved to Laugharne The aim is to create a 15-bedroom hotel with the furnishings and finishes reflecting the 1950s. Heritage agency Cadw has also offered a grant of £62,500 towards structural repairs, including re-roofing and the reinstatement of windows to match the originals. The grant is part of a £47m package of capital investment announced to stimulate the Welsh economy in November 2010. Happy days.
