Herald Inns swings to food
Herald Inns & Bars, the high street bar and nightclub operator owned by Trevor Hemmings and HBoS, is to open suburban food-led pubs in a major change of strategy.
The move is a major u-turn after it failed to sell its Brannigans bar chain at the end of last year.
The company, which has made heavy losses for a number of years, appointed a new managing director, Kevin Allcock (pictured), at the start of this year.
Now it plans to invest £5m in evolving its Mood nightclub sites into a next-generation product it is calling Mood To (2).
It is also to diversify its portfolio through high-street bar, student and suburban food concept development.
Allcock said: "We will focus our capital investment program in creating a number of robust concepts, principally lead by the creation of our next generation nightclub Mood To (2).
"We are fortunate to have a portfolio of businesses in excellent locations and we intend capitalising on this through focused investment, developing operational efficiencies and providing first class support to our operations teams."
erald has strengthened its management team with the appointment of Mike Ashton as operations director and David McLean as operations development executive.
Herald is also close to appointing a senior food development manager to lead food growth plans. Allcock added: We¹ve set ourselves challenging financial and operational goals. I believe we can develop our business to play a market leading role by delivering exciting and exceptional customer experiences and enjoyment."
