27/02/2024 10:38:00
Nightcap, the bar operator led by Sarah Willingham, has acquired The Piano Works, the live entertainment concept, reports Pub & Bar. Currently operating at Nightcap's Barrio Covent Garden venue and at a site in Farringdon, London, The Piano Works is an interactive live music entertainment business, typically involving pianists, vocalists and other musicians performing an audience-curated playlist. STAMP Entertainment Limited, a recently incorporated, 100% owned subsidiary of Nightcap, has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire certain of the assets of TDC Concepts Limited, the operator of The Piano Works. Nightcap is paying a total consideration of £200,000 for the assets. The Piano Works acquisition completed following a pre-pack administration process by TDCC. It is intended that the current directors of TDCC will become minority shareholders in STAMP.
Miiro, a new lifestyle hotel brand, is set to open its first UK property in London in 2025. Templeton Garden will be a 156-room hotel with a café-style deli, restaurant, bar and garden in London's Earl's Court, advises The Caterer. Miiro currently has five hotel openings in the pipeline over the next two years. The group plans to open properties in Paris and Barcelona this summer, followed by London and Vienna next year. The company is led by chief executive Neena Gupta, who was previously executive director of group strategy and international hospitality at InterGlobe Enterprises, which owns Miiro.
Danish-owned sushi and kushiyaki specialist Sticks'n'Sushi has secured a £22m loan from digital bank OakNorth to support its future growth in the UK. The Restaurant says that the Japanese premium restaurant group, which was acquired by specialist investor McWin Capital Partners in a deal that valued the business at €80m (£68m) last month, currently operates a total of 27 restaurants internationally including 12 in Denmark, all based in Copenhagen; and three in Berlin, Germany. However, the UK now represents Sticks'n'Sushi's largest market in terms of turnover. The brand opened its first restaurant here in Wimbledon in 2012 and now has an estate of 12 sites across London, Cambridge and Oxford, with a 13th, in Richmond, scheduled to open in May. Stuart Blair, director of debt finance at OakNorth, believes the group is 'primed' for further growth.
Drinks sales in the seven days to Saturday 17 February remained flat year-on-year despite a "welcome boost" from Valentine's Day. Morning Advertiser reports that the latest CGA by NIQ Daily Drinks Tracker showed drinks sales by value in managed venues were 0.1% below the equivalent period in 2023. It followed growth of just 1% the seven days prior, as detailed in the previous tracker, and four weeks of negative numbers before this. The tracker showed growth on five of the seven days during the seven day period, with sales Valentine's Day 9% higher than in 2023.
Confidence among the leaders of Britain's top hospitality businesses has fallen due to cost pressures, new research shows. Only 41% of leaders currently feel confident about the hospitality market over the next 12 months, according to CGA by NIQ's latest edition of its Business Confidence Survey, down by eight percentage points from October's figure of 49%. The Restaurant says that the proportion of leaders who feel optimistic about prospects for their own business in the next year has also fallen, from 62% in October to 57% now. The falls brings to an end four successive quarters of growth in confidence, and emphasises the fragility of the hospitality sector in the wake of Covid-19 and the inflation crisis, according to CGA by NIQ.
Red Engine, the team behind Flight Club Darts and Electric Shuffle, has revealed sales figures from its full year 2023 financial results. The results reveal growth for the business, with sales up 26% against 2022, says Pub & Bar. Red Engine, supported by its franchise partners State of Play Hospitality (US) and NightOwl Entertainment (Australia), opened four new sites in 2023 across the UK, US and Australia, taking the total Red Engine and partners estate to 25 venues - 15 owned and 10 partner-owned. Sales across all combined businesses exceeded £100m for 2023, up 28% year-on-year, with like-for-like sales increasing by 10%. Red Engine-owned venue sales totalled £67m.
BT Tower is set to become a hotel following a £275m sale. Property Week says that the iconic landmark has been snapped up by US group MCR Hotels.