Friday Five: the week's top news
- Whitbread is understood to be exploring the potential sale of part of its £700m pub and restaurant arm in order to focus its efforts on its Premier Inn hotel chain. According to The Telegraph, the group has hired advisers to explore options for the division, which houses the Beefeater, Bar + Block and Brewers Fayre chains. Sources have said that discussions are at a preliminary stage and may not result in the business being sold, and they insisted that only a 'small part' of Whitbread’s pub and restaurant business was being considered for possible disposal. Whitbread’s advisers are understood to have begun contacting potentially interested parties, asking them to sign nondisclosure agreements ahead of a formal sales process.
- Chutney Mary and Amaya operator MW Eat has taken the Criterion Restaurant site in London’s Piccadilly Circus for its more informal Masala Zone brand. The high-profile acquisition marks a return to growth for the brand, which at one point had seven locations in the capital and was eyeing nationwide expansion. Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus is anticipated to have around 180 covers and will join sites in Soho, Covent Garden and Earl’s Court when it launches towards the end of next month.
- Akwasi Brenya-Mensa will close his Tatale restaurant at Southwark’s The Africa Centre next month. The Pan-African restaurant concept launched last summer and was well-received, chalking up a highly positive review from The Guardian critic Grace Dent. According to his representatives, Brenya-Mensa is currently ‘plotting, creating, and moving forward’ and hopes Tatale will ‘spread its wings on to new ventures’. The Africa Centre is set to ‘pass the baton’ to a food entrepreneur from the Black diaspora, who through its support will cultivate and grow their concept.
- Caribbean-inspired restaurant group Turtle Bay will open its 50th UK site in August in Camden, which will also mark the brand’s first outpost in north London. The launch of is part of a larger expansion plan for the group, which is aiming to open a total of six new restaurants in 2023. So far this year Turtle Bay has launched sites in Blackpool and Hammersmith, the latter of which is also the group’s largest London restaurant to date, holding a total of 500 covers. A further opening in Lincoln, in the city’s Cornhill Quarter, is planned for September.
- Subway has launched a menu initiative that will see it offer 15 sandwiches with set fillings to run alongside its existing fully-customisable offering. A New Way to Subway is being billed as the biggest shake up to the fast food chain’s menu since it launched on these shores in 1996 and is being supported by a multi-million pound advertising campaign. The new menu is expected to speed up ordering as well as simplify online and third-party delivery service transactions. The change follows ‘extensive research’ and a positive response from customers during market testing, which saw 1.4 million of the new sandwiches served in 340 restaurants across the UK.
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