According to our sister title, M&C Report, the group, which earlier this month opened its third UK site in Upper Street, Islington, is believed to be close to securing sites in Guildford and Kingston to join a further opening lined up for Lakeside, Essex, next year.
The company is also believed to be look at locations in Croydon as it looks to strengthen its presence in the south east. It is thought to have offers on eight to 10 locations at the moment.
The group’s new head of property Neville Maling told M&C Report at the start of this month that the new openings would be 50 per cent based inside the M25 and the South East and the remaining 50 per cent in the regions, with plans to open in clusters around places such as Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield.
He said: “Thirty is the ambition. We are looking at sites of between 2,500-5,000 sq.ft, with 3,000 sq.ft the ideal size for us.”
National presence
Maling said that he expects the group’s fourth opening to take place early next year, with a couple of sites in the South East vying to ‘get over the line first’.
He said that further expansion in the regions – ‘above Manchester’ would be looked at in 2015.
Five Guys opened its first UK site to long queues on Independence Day. Marcel Khan, who is overseeing the group’s UK operations, told BigHospitality's sister publication M&C Report earlier this year that the group aims to have five sites open by the end of the year, including a flagship site, a regional unit, a shopping centre site and on a leisure park.
“The first year will be a period of learning for the chain," he said. "We do aim to have a national presence, that’s the ambition, but we first want to see how the model works in a number of key locations, not just a flagship unit, but in a high street and on a leisure park. Once we have that in place we can assess what works and what doesn’t and move on from there.”