Simmons Bars secures site in Eastcheap

Simmons Bars has lined up a new site in Eastcheap, in the City, for an opening early next year, MCA has learnt.

The multiple bar operator, which was acquired by Lonsdale Private Equity in a £10m deal earlier this year, is looking to open its 14^th site, at Unit 5, 35 Eastcheap – part of the Eastcheap Estate development, Simmons’ CEO and founder Nick Campbell told MCA.

He said it would be a City version of its other sites, and was “a great location for what we do”. The site is spread across two floors – ground floor and basement, with around 2,000 sq ft in total.

Campbell told MCA that Simmons was still looking to more than double its footprint, following the Lonsdale deal, to 30-35 sites over the next three years.

“We have a couple more sites in the pipeline that we are looking and hoping to complete on in February/March time,” he said, however the business had been struggling to find suitable sites until recently.

“We have also been spending a fair amount of time this year focusing on our back of house operations, our head office and systems and processes to allow us to grow properly rather than chasing our tails the whole time.

As part of this it has made a number of senior hires in our head office, restructured slightly, and got itself in a position to roll out properly, he said.

In addition to the appointment of Tom Henry, formerly of the Casual Dining Group, as its chief financial officer earlier this year, Simmons has also appointed Ollie Taylor as its head of sales of marketing, who joined from Novus Leisure, and Kelsey Brennan, from Belushi’s as operations manager.

Campbell added that while the summer weather wasn’t prime trading time for the business, but since the beginning of September “we have been flying”, with like-for-like sales up +10%, and up +15% on the last period.