The Underdog Group has sold its East London tequila bar Green & Red to concentrate on the expansion of its steak restaurant concept Hawksmoor.
Operators Will Beckett and Huw Gott sold the Bethnal Green Road site to Ed Mason of Dalton’s Duke of Wellington pub, who will now run it as English bar Mason & Taylor from the end of this month.
Beckett told BigHospitality the sale was made so the pair could concentrate fully on the opening of their second 194-cover Hawksmoor restaurant in Covent Garden this week.
“Green & Red was a great premises and it is sad to see it sold. However, we decided to focus, as a group, on driving the success of Hawksmoor’s second and hopefully other future sites.”
Annual expansion
Gott told BigHospitality that the group planned to expand the Hawksmoor brand at a rate of one per year.
“We want to do it steadily and we want to maintain consistency, quality and atmosphere, so we won’t be expanding too fast.
For the time being we’ll concentrate on London, as from a geographical point of view it makes it easier for us to get from site to site. There’s definitely demand in London for a few Hawksmoors so we’ll start there and see how we go.”
Gott added that the pair would be looking at areas populated by people with “a reasonable disposable income”, including Canary Wharf, Smithfields, Mayfair, and suburban West London.
Earlier this year Gott spoke to BigHospitality about his experience of opening a second site. Click here to watch the video.