B&P to reopen 2nd Blubeckers

Brunning & Price (B&P), the gastropub operator owned by the Restaurant Group, is set to reopen a second Blubeckers site in its own trading style.

The company will reopen the Greyhound at Bessels Leigh, just outside Oxford, next Tuesday. B&P reopened its first Blubecker site, the White Hart in Sevenoaks, last July after a £400,000 refurbishment.

The Restaurant Group is converting Blubeckers to the more traditional B&P pub operating style after B&P traded well in the recession.

B&P is also looking to get planning consent to convert two freehold pubs to its own trading style. One is a former Whitbread site, Nevill Crest & Gun in Eridge, Kent — it hopes to reopen it in the autumn. The other is the Old Hall, Sandbach, Cheshire, a former hotel with 10 bedrooms on English Heritage's "at risk" register, which it wants to open by the end of 2010.

B&P currently operates 16 pubs, 13 in the north-west of England and three in the south-east.