Merchant House Group, the premium cocktail bar operator led by Lewis Hayes and Nate Brown, will look to open five site in London, with each specialising in a particular spirit type, MCA has learnt.
The pair, who are behind London Bar Consultants and have helped launch scores of bars between them, recently opened their second venue, Merchant House of Fleet Street, which specialises in whisky, particularly Irish and Scottish.
Hayes told MCA they would look to open a boutique collection of personal bars inspired by their formative years working for Living Ventures.
He said: “We think there’s an incredibly rich tradition of storytelling with spirits. Rum, gin and whisky are so closely linked to mercantile trade, and we’re mining that story and telling it guests as they come in the door.
“As we move forward we do envisage opening up more bars under the Merchant House name, and exploring those ideas in a bit more detail and specialising in other areas.
“We want to build a small boutique group of around five in London – all easy to get to by public transport. Both our current sites are in the City but we’re keen to stretch beyond that for the next one.”
Both have experience launching bar operations, with Hayes opening Embassy Mayfair and DSTRKT Piccadilly and Brown opening the first three London Cocktail Clubs.
They set up London Bar Consultants in 2012 and took on the City of London Distillery, which started out as a consultancy project, but was sold to them by the client.
They used the proceeds from the sale to set up Merchant House in Bow Lane, which specialises in rum and gin.
Hayes said though their spirit selection was premium, they were thrifty about setting up business,
He added: “Me and Nate are not shy about saying we opened our first bar with £13,000 – we had no staff, music or website.
“We would look to possible investment if and when, but we’ve managed to get this far without it. We shall see how we fare in the future and how fast we want to expand.”
