Steve Haslam, managing director of TLC Inns, has told M&C the company’s Chelmsford site will serve as a flagship venue for the Grand Central brand, which he hopes will drive sales to £10m a year.
Haslam said he expected to open at least one more site in the financial year from March 2016, on top of the Chelmsford opening in May.
He said the currently eight-strong company was on track to deliver a rise in EBITDA from £1.1m last year to £1.4m this year with a turnover of £7.5m.
He told M&C: “The last year has been gone our biggest growth period ever. We added three sites, which was a big step up from the level of about one a year, which was the pace we were going at beforehand.”
He said he was in the final stages of legals for the Chelmsford site and expected to exchange in January for an opening in May after a £700,000 refurb.
He said: “It will be our most high profile site to date with million people going past door annually. You could call it a flagship site.
“Grand Central has certainly evolved over the four sites and because it’s not a generic design it develops with each new site.”
He said trading had been solid throughout the year but summer had been hit by the poor weather.
He said Christmas bookings were up across the estate with some up 35% on last year.
He reiterated his desire to add a financial director and operations director over the next year.
The company a further £1m of funding from Barclays Corporate and Haslam said he was keen to continue that relationship.
He said: “If we wanted rollout at a slow pace we are now in a position to do that through cashflow but I think we will want to pick up the pace a bit.”
