The Casual Dining Group is to continue to keep its “foot down” on expansion plans, and despite uncertainty in the marketplace, is eyeing opening 20 to 25 sites per year across its stable of brands.
The Steve Richards-led group, which operates the Las Iguanas, Café Rouge and La Tasca brands, opened 43 new restaurants in the year to May 2016 – 28 of which were under its Bella Italia brand. A further seven restaurants will open in the next 12 weeks.
It is understood that CDG has a very strong pipeline across all of its brands and continues to build on this to achieve an openings target of 20-25 sites per annum for 2016/17 and 2017/18.
MCA understands that whilst Bella remains a significant growth driver for the company, there may be a bit more of a balance of openings between its brands as it looks at wider opportunities for the concepts, including airports, leisure parks and concessions.
In line with that, and with the strengthening of Bella Italia’s operational team earlier this year, which included the appointment of chief operations officer Simon Holroyd and two regional operations directors, Brian McGweon, the brand’s operations director – new openings, has stepped down.
Bella Italia managing director Nick White said: “Brian is someone I have known for 25 years. He came on board to help us in what was an unprecedented period of openings for Bella Italia – in less than a year we have opened 28 Bella restaurants and brought in 2,000 new colleagues, and we are extremely grateful for his significant contribution. He has done a fantastic job, we part of the best of terms and wish him very well.”
