The Craft Beer Co is set to make its debut in the City of London, after securing the leasehold of the former Trident Bar and Restaurant on Mitre Lane, M&C has learnt.
The Martin Hayes-led company agreed terms on its seventh site with a private landlord. The deal sees the company move into London’s Insurance district, an area Hayes believes is “hugely under-provided for in terms of craft beer”.
Hayes told M&C: “We’ve always wanted to take the business into the City, but until now, we haven’t found the right site. I always said that opening in Covent Garden last year would represent a ‘tipping point’ for the business, and I’m happy to have been proven right. Since opening that site, our sixth, we have been inundated with offers of new sites to take the brand into.
“Our skill is picking the right ones. What has been interesting though, is how many landlords are coming to us with a view to us adding value to schemes they are working on or offering a good covenant for them in existing and generally underperforming sites.
“The Craft Beer Co. St Mary Axe, as we’re calling it, will have all the hallmarks of our other sites – great cask and keg beer on tap, backed-up with an amazing selection of bottled beers from around the globe. We will be bringing a ‘world class’ line-up of beers to the City.”
The Craft Beer Co will re-open the Mitre Lane site in later this autumn after a substantial refurbishment.
Last month, Hayes said the group was gearing up to open its first pub outside the south east, telling M&C that a site in Bristol “is ours if we want it”.
Hayes said the site, which is part of a new development, would be a perfect fit for the company, which is also close to securing its first site in the City.
He told M&C: “There is a great craft beer scene in Bristol but I am confident we could go in there and have the best offer. Bristol is just far enough that it would be manageable under our current structure.
“The plan is still to eventually get sites in places like Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge and possibly Glasgow and Edinburgh.”
He also told M&C that he would be willing to work with a new landlord at the company’s Islington outlet, the freehold of which has been put on the market by Greene King.
