Stonegate acquires The Living Room from Premium Bars & Restaurants

Stonegate, owner of eight brands, including Slug & Lettuce, Yates's and Scream, will continue to run the sites in Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford and York under the Living Room brand while it makes a decision whether to transfer them to its existing brands or not. 

A spokesperson for Stonegate said: "No decision has yet been made as to whether any of the sites ail transfer to other brands as the Living Room estate has some fantastic bars that operate extremely well. Like all the businesses in the Stonegate estate they will be assessed over time."

The move comes following two other acquisitions for the group - The Queens Head in Frodsham, Cheshire, and a large site for the Slug & Lettuce at the O2 in Greenwich and is part of Stonegate's continual expansion plans. 

Toby Smith, chief executive of Stonegate, said: “We are delighted to have acquired The Living Room business and are looking forward to working with the current team to operate what are undoubtedly some of the finest sites in the UK."

Living Room​

Premium bar and dining room brand The Living Room was created by Living Ventures co-founder Tim Bacon in 1999 before it was bought by Ultimate Leisure, which later became Premium Bars & Restaurants (PBR), in 2007. The brand, along with others under PBR, transferred to Orchid in 2009 after the pub company rescued PBR from administration. 

However, Orchid sold the 33-strong PBR estate to Eclectic last year​ to enable it to focus on its core business. 

The Living Room's 13 sites join Stonegate's 573-strong estate which is split into the Classic Inns, Local Pubs, Great Traditional Pubs, Slug and Lettuce, Scream, Yates, Bars & Venues and Missoula segments.