Thorley Taverns, the Kent-based pub, hotel and restaurant operator, re-opening a pub in Margate after a £500,000 refurbishment to cash in on visitors to a major new art gallery opposite.
Hoy Bar & Kitchen is set to start trading in the first week of April, one week before the opening of the Turner Contemporary. “That’s going to be providing the footfall,” said Thorley Taverns managing director Phil Thorley. “They think they are going to get 150,000 visitors a year and we think it’s going to be more than that.”
Thorley said his company has owned the freehold of the venue, which formally operated as a hotel, for about 15 years but it has “mothballed” in recent times.
Hoy Bar & kitchen, which has views over Margate’s harbour, will focus on modern British cooking, with dishes cooked from scratch on site. It will have 60 seats for dining.
Thorley Taverns is also set to spend £250,000 renovating its Pegwell Bay Hotel in Ramsgate, which will see an extra 40 seats added to the function room and a new balcony bar created upstairs.
