Honest Burgers, the Active Private Equity-backed group, has further strengthened its openings pipeline in London and secured its first site outside the capital, MCA understands.
The company, which recently opened its sixteenth site in Hammersmith, has secured the former White Rabbit site in Bradbury Street, Dalston, for an opening on 7 November, to be followed by a launch at 31 Paddington Street, just off Baker Street on 28 November.
The group will follow that with an opening next spring at 5-7 Southwark Street.
MCA has also learnt that the group has secured its first regional site in Reading, in the King Street adjacent to the proposed The Botanist site from New World Trading Company.
Honest is also in talks on a site in Greenwich,
The group, which opened sixteenth site next week in Hammersmith on the former Meat Yard site in Fulham Palace Road, recently appointed a new property director, new head of recruitment, a new head of marketing and a new project manager as it looks to open up to 10 new sites next year – comprising a mixture of openings in the capital and in the regions, with locations in the likes of Reading, Cambridge and Oxford being eyed up.
MCA understands that for the first six months of the year, sales across the group were up 43% year-on-year, whilst it is on track to post full-year turnover of c£16.5m.
The group’s new property director is Jason Atherton, formerly a director at property advisory firm Harper Dennis Hobbs.
The group’s commercial director Harald Samuelsson, the former joint managing director of Cote, told MCA earlier this year that the company planned to open 10 sites in 2017; comprising five inside London and five outside, with locations such as Brighton, Reading, Oxford and Bristol on its radar. It is thought that the group will look to ramp its regional rollout the following year.
Active invested £7m in the better burger concept in return for a c50% stake, which is understood to have valued the business at c£15m-16m.
