Foodies and drinkers loving going underground

FOODIES and real ale lovers have turned a subterranean complex of restaurants and bars into a major success – even before its £19m redevelopment, including a nine-screen cinema, is complete.

The new leisure facility at Bolton’s Market Place incorporating the Light cinema was due for completion by Christmas, but complications with construction work on the building which dates back to the 1850s has caused delays.

However, the scheme by conceived by owners Moorgarth to create a basement area transporting visitors to the vaults of the building has already proved a hit with people in the town since they opened on March 23.

Restaurants Nando’s and Prezzo have opened up with other independent restaurants set to further when further work below is complete.

Meanwhile, the Great Ale bar, run by Australian former rugby league coach Steve Simms and his wife Anne is also proving a massive hit.

Simms said: “We expected to be successful, but not quite so soon. From day one  of opening in the vaults we’vebeen busy.

“We’re getting a lot of new and repeat customers and as a result we are looking for new staff.”

Manager of the Market Place Nikki Wilson Cook said the popularity of the vaulted area was an “enormous boost” to the partially finished project.

“Steve and Anne are both well-known in the town and their success with the Great Ale bar is fantastic to see,” she said.

“It’s great to see all the age ranges coming into the vaults. Nando’s is certainly attracting the younger diners, but there is also something for the more mature diner and drinker as well.

“This bodes well for the future when the whole complex is complete.”

Wilson Cook said she was reluctant to talk about a date for the opening of the cinema.

“It’s been put back so many times,” she said. “This is because of the complexities and challenges of working on a building which is as old as this is, while the retail businesses in the building a live (still open).”

“But it is going to open this year, although I can’t give a specific date.”

Moorgarth bought the Market Place for £24m in 2013, and the decision to open up the vaults was the brainchild of chief executive Tim Vaughan, after he visited the basement of the building which had been used for storage for 150 years, a situation he described as “crazy”.

 “With a facility like those vaults, it would have been madness not to use them,” he said.