City Diary - 5 June

Bay moves are not so sluggish

City Diary has noticed a bit of hopping around in Norwich by Bay Restaurant Group, the company that bought the foodier bits of Laurel Pub Company out of administration. Both the Slug & Lettuce and Yates have been closed in the city for a while. But the Slug & Lettuce has now moved two doors down into the former Yates, after a 16-day refurbishment costing £250,000. A Bay Restaurant spokesman said: "We wanted to bring our latest Slug & Lettuce design to Norwich and thought the bigger store would be better to do that in. We think it will work very well."

£1.7m from under the hammer

A handy £1.7m drops into the deposit account of Greene King, courtesy of the auction market. The company has successfully sold two pubs tenanted by Blubeckers, the country pub chain owned by The Restaurant Group. The Greyhound in Besselsleigh, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which was sold for £900,000, and the White Hart in Cadnam, Hampshire, sold for £800,000, pay a combined rent of circa £134,000, meaning the Restaurant Group's covenant is worth around 7.85%. Shows some pubs will still sell at auction, but investors want the best part of an 8% return on their money.

Bids are not in abundance

Overall, though, the

pub auction market is seeing much more wary buyers after years of, er, over-exuberance.

A Yates's site in Leeds, not one of the 40-odd in administration, failed to sell at a Jones Lang Lasalle auction on 22 May. The last bid was £1,980,000 on a site where a rent of £125,000 per annum is being paid. Perhaps no surprise

there. But even the JD Wetherspoon (JDW) tenanted Golden Grove pub in Stratford, close to the site of 2012 Olympics, failed to sell. Bidding stalled at £1.84m, some £50,000 short of the reserve — JDW has 25 years remaining on a 40-year lease and pays a rent of £87,500 per annum.

Village people won't go thirsty

Under-pubbing in Buckshaw Village is being corrected at speed. First, Marston's opened a new-build site in the newly-created conurbation in Chorley, Lancashire. Now Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) is lining up a new-build Ember Inns venue. A spokesman for M&B said: "We have submitted a planning application to build a brand-new Ember Inns pub. We are in the process of working with the local authorities and, subject to approval, we hope to be on site by autumn this year, with the pub scheduled to open by spring 2009."

July opening due for B&P freehold

You'll remember Restaurant Group bought the utterly terrific Brunning & Price (B&P) pub chain last year. B&P bought the freehold

on the utterly terrific Sutton Hall, near Macclesfield, in spring 2007. It was a freehold in need of a lot of work. City Diary hears an opening date has been set at last for the remodelled Sutton Hall, the first new opening under the auspices of Restaurant Group. "There's no definite date yet, but it should be some time in July," a source reports.

Onwards and outwards

Evidence that Whitbread is back on the pub- expansion track after years of contraction. It has unveiled plans to open a pub and restaurant in Oswestry, Shropshire, as part of a major development on the outskirts of the town, creating 65 jobs. Even more surprising is that Whitbread wants to open

a Brewers Fayre — the brand that seemed dead and buried — there.