Time Well Spent, the Surrey-based pub and restaurant operator, funded by a unique form of crowdfunding is eyeing growth from six sites to 14 by Spring 2017, M&C has learnt.
The company, run by Marc and Maureen Jones, is funded by a network of local high net-worth investors who put in between £30,000 and £250,000 on the promise of high percentage returns but no security.
The company is currently backed by 16 investors but has a further 35 waiting to take part, Marc Jones told M&C.
He said: “We call it ‘whites-of-your-eyes’ investment because this is all done on a face to face basis. There is a written agreement but the whole relationship is based on trust.”
Time Well Spent currently operates five pubs and one restaurant and has three openings lined up for the first quarter of 2016.
The first will be restaurant concept Taste in Tadwworth, followed by pub and restaurant The Plough & Attic Rooms in Rusper, which the company is buying back from Enterprise Inns after first operating the site five years ago. The company has also taken on the Red Lion in Betchworth, which will be its first foray into accommodation.
Jones told M&C he expected the company’s immediate growth to centre around restaurants.
He said: “I’m not scared to take on pubs. I think that if you’re a good operator you can still do well. If you’re a bad operator you never would have done well but especially not now because the pub market is difficult.
“I would describe our restaurants as sticking two fingers up to the soulless chains. We are about traditional values. We’re carpets and curtains not slate and marble. That’s what my market, which is predominantly 45-plus, wants. They’re a resilient market, even in tough times.”
On the structure for growth, he said: “Being a multiple operator is a bit like marathon running. The first mile is the most painful. We’re at about mile two and we’re in a position where we can grow to about 14 sites, when we would be running at critical point.
“At the end of this year we will probably to get to 12 or 13 then the following year by March we would need to add another layer of management.”
