South West-headquartered restaurant chain Loungers is to open a venue right on the waterfront at St Ives in Cornwall as one of 25 news sites this year.
The Bristol-based company, which already operates 168 café/bar/restaurants across England and Wales under the Lounge and Cosy Club brands, will open the Tretho Lounge in Wharf Road, in the Cornish seaside town, on May 26, 2021.
Currently advertising for staff, the St Ives branch is one of four that will be launching on that date, the others being in Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Welwyn Garden City.
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It will bring the firm’s estate to 172 sites, comprising 142 Lounges and 30 Cosy Clubs. These new sites were partially fitted out going into lockdown at the end of December 2020 and are currently being completed.
to reopening its other venues and will initially open 47 sites in England on April 12 for takeaway and external trading, and five sites in Wales on April 26 on the same basis, in line with the respective governments' suggested roadmaps.
Assuming no changes to the roadmap, the company plans to re-open all its English sites by May 17 and sites in Wales later in May subject to confirmation from the Welsh government.
A statement to investors said: “We are approaching re-opening with enthusiasm and optimism, encouraged by how strongly the business traded last Summer and Autumn.
“Our sites have been completely closed since December 30 and we have used this time well, continuing to focus on evolution within Lounge and Cosy Club, as well as undertaking targeted investment in our sites, particularly in our outside trading areas. We remain confident that Loungers is well-placed to emerge strongly as the country comes out of lockdown.
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The statement to the Stock Market continued: “We anticipate - and are ready to return to - a run-rate of 25 new site openings per year during the course of the year ending April 2022, assuming no further Covid interruptions. The pipeline of new sites is exceptionally strong and we continue to see a large number of attractive opportunities in the locations which we are targeting.”
This comes as Loungers further strengthened its financial and liquidity position and said its lending banks, Santander and Bank of Ireland, have approved a 12-month extension to the incremental £15million revolving credit facility (RCF) that was put in place in April 2020.
This additional facility now runs to October 2022 and provides the company with total RCF facilities of £25million.
Covenant tests at April 18, 2021, have been waived and subsequent quarterly tests until December 26, 2021, have been re-set to provide appropriate headroom to enable a full resumption of the company's new site roll-out programme.
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Nick Collins, chief executive of Loungers, said: "Having been closed since December 30, it is really exciting to be back in some of the sites, preparing to open our terraces to customers. Whilst it is frustrating that we have to wait until May 17 to re-open more fully given the steps we have taken to ensure our business is Covid-safe, it does allow us to re-open gradually, bring our teams back from furlough and get the supply chain back up and running.
"We expect to trade well once the estate is fully re-opened, particularly with our strong coastal presence as we look forward to a summer of staycationing.
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“Planned new openings in Blackpool, Scarborough and Aberystwyth ahead of the summer holidays will reinforce this position. Our suburban and market town locations, combined with our flexible, all-day model, mean we are well-positioned as we look to the future.
"The most recent lockdown has given us a real opportunity to build a fantastic pipeline of new sites in what is undoubtedly a tenant-friendly environment.
“We will approach the coming months cautiously but are very keen to get back to opening 25 sites a year at the earliest opportunity with such excellent properties being presented to us, and we are grateful to Santander and Bank of Ireland for their continued support."