Red Dog Saloon founder Tom Brooke has confirmed that the brand has its eye on expansion with a series of regional sites set to open next year.
Brooke told M&C’s sister title BigHospitality that the barbecue restaurant had secured ‘quite a big’ site in Nottingham and would be opening in Southampton in 2016.
M&C understands the group will open in Southampton’s West Quay development and in Nottingham’s Victoria Street. It has also got a site at Lakeside shopping scheme lined up.
The group is also set to launch its third and, at 40-covers, smallest site to date in Soho’s Berwick Street later this month.
“I personally think [Red Dog Saloon] could work anywhere because it’s not pretentious or stuffy, and it’s not UK driven,” said Brooke.
“It’s very much down to earth and focused on the average guy.”
Brooke explained that the group was looking ‘all over the country’ for suitable locations.
Though the brand is ‘not ruling out’ further growth in London, expansion is proving difficult with sites increasingly hard to come by.
“We would like to open in west London in Notting Hill, Portobello kind of areas,” he said.
“It wasn’t a conscious decision to have Soho be our smallest restaurant. It’s very difficult to find locations because it’s such a competitive environment at the moment and the market is incredibly expensive.”
Barbecue concepts have boomed since Red Dog first opened its doors in Hoxton in 2011, with Blues Smokehouse, Red’s True Barbecue and Meat & Shake all expanding in the capital.
But Brooke explained that the added competition only served to push the restaurant to ‘raise its game’.
“It is a really competitive environment, and we want to be the best,” he said.
