Mezzé Restaurants is planning to grow to a leased estate of 15 ‘pubs’ within four years before selling the business into a large managed estate, business owner Alex Tryfonos told M&C Report.
The four-strong Bristol-based group, which will shortly open its fifth and sixth refurbished pub sites in Portishead and Ham Green, is being courted to take on more properties by existing landlords Enterprise and Green King, and has recently been approached by Young’s.
“Green King, in particular, likes our model,” said Tryfonos. “Managing director Simon Longbottom has been down to see us and said he is very pleased with what we’re doing.
“Sadly the banks aren’t so keen. They don’t like our lack of freeholds - they see leases as liabilities rather than assets - and won’t even give us an overdraft, despite the fact that we’ll do £5m this year.
“We really like 25-year leases. In fact we see the pubcos as our banks. We choose badly dilapidated, Grade II-listed closed or failing sites, get them to invest in them back to their book values and beyond and ensure they and we get value in their spends.”
Tryfonos revealed: “We’ve just released 5% of equity to fund the next two sites; and then we plan to grow self-sufficiently and sustainably at two sites a year for the next 5 years. After that we’ll look to sell up to become a managed house division. We’ll fit into someone’s bigger picture.”
Tryfonos said the Mezzé Restaurants concept is growing strongly. The first site, Mezzé at the Royal George in Thornbury, is still delivering like-for-like growth after five years. The ‘pubs’ serve coffee, cakes, sandwiches and pints by day, turn into restaurants by evening and then revert to a late night café bar after 10pm.
“In this neck of the woods [on the outskirts of Bristol and Bath], no one is taking the mezzé/tapas/à la carte middle market,” said Tryfonos. “We’d compete with Jamie Oliver, Browns, Carluccios etc, but they only want to trade in city centres. We give customers an excuse not to spend £50 on a taxi.
“Mezzé dining serves so many different categories, from pensioners who will share three dishes and a pint at lunchtime, to a younger crowd that will dine with us at 7pm and still be with us at 2am - like they’d do in the Mediterranean. They’ll come in for three mezzés for £12, but that will turn into four or five, plus cocktails, wine and a dessert.”
