Individual Restaurant Company (IRC), the casual dining group, is introducing its bar & grill menu into the Zinc restaurants it now operates after its merger with Bank Restaurant Group (BRC) at the end of 2006.
The group has already introduced the new menu into its Zinc site in Manchester and has been encouraged by the increase in sales it has already generated.
It now plans to introduce the menu into its two other Zinc sites in Glasgow and Birmingham.
Vernon Lord, financial director, told M&C Report: “We just felt that the menus in the Zinc estate need a bit of a refresh.
“It’s not a drastic change but it is one that has been positively received and will be soon be introduced into Zinc Glasgow and then into our Birmingham site.”
Lord also said that the company was looking to add a number of Asian-influenced dishes onto the menus of the group’s three Bank restaurants in Birmingham, and in Aldwych and Westminster, London.
He said: ‘It is was one element we thought was lacking from those sites and something we thought could improve their offer.”
Lord also dismissed suggestions that the company was preparing to convert more of its Zinc branded sites to Piccolino, its Italian restaurant concept.
The company has recently closed the Zinc in Heddon Street, London, in order to convert it to a Piccolino, with the rebranded site set to open in May.
However, Lord said that for the foreseeable future the company would continue to operate the three Zinc restaurants while concentrating on rolling out Piccolino, its key driver, through a pipeline of sites already in place rather than conversions.
It plans to open a total of six new restaurants this year, five Piccolino’s, including the Heddon Street site, and its fourth Bar & Grill, which will be in Liverpool.
The next and 14th Piccolino to open will be at Heddon Street, closely followed by the 15th in Didsbury, Manchester.
By the end of the year the company’s estate will stand at 30 restaurants, including 19 Piccolino’s, four Bar & Grills, three Zincs, and three Bank restaurants.
The company hopes to open a further five sites in 2008.
