Town & City's new premium concept

Town & City Pub Company has launched a new premium concept called Berkeley Bar & Grill, which it hopes to roll out in major cities across the UK.

The first Berkeley Bar & Grill opened last month in Plymouth on the site of a former Ha Ha Bar & Canteen after a £180,000 investment.

Offering breakfast from 9am and food all day, the Berkeley features a more premium food offer than sister brand Slug & Lettuce, including stone-baked pizza, pasta and risotto, and a

comprehensive grill menu featuring 28 day-aged British steaks.

Toby Smith, chief executive of Town & City, said: "The Plymouth site was one of two left over from the sale of the Ha Ha chain to Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) and allowed us the perfect opportunity to try a new approach with a more premium offer.

"It is something we think could be expanded to other city-centre locations when the opportunity arises."

The other former Ha Ha site, in Manchester's Spinningfields, which was included in the sale of the chain to M&B for £19.5m last September, has since been converted to a Slug & Lettuce. Smith said the company was continuing to roll out the next-generation look for the 80-strong Slug & Lettuce chain, which it launched last year in Chester.

The new look, which includes a more contemporary design, some booth seating, better lighting and systems, plus a new palette of colours majoring on aubergine (purple-brown), has since been launched at its Canary Wharf, Durham and Solihull sites.

He said the company, currently on-site at its Chichester Slug & Lettuce, in West Sussex, hopes to have 12 sites converted to the new format in the next year.

Smith said: "The feedback we received was that people visited a Slug and then at 7pm moved to another bar. The brand had moved away in the minds of consumers from being a bar where they could stay all evening. We wanted to address that."