Residence’s recipe for success
BAR and restaurant pub entrepreneurs Ben Rafferty and Paul Newman are targeting expansion, in spite of the crisis engulfing the sector.
The pair launched Residence, an upmarket restaurant and bar in Nantwich, Cheshire, 13 months ago, and it has been a major success.
Buoyed by this the pair hope to open a second site early in the new year, and will roll out the Residence concept, and a pub brand as the economic conditions improve.
Mr Rafferty, 38, a former champion barman and later pub acquisitions manager for a number of major national and regional brewers, said he was upbeat for the future, despite the toughest trading conditions he had ever seen.
“We are being cautious, but we have ear-marked a second site, in a market town near Chester, which we will refit and then open as Residence.”
Mr Raffery and business partner Paul Newman, the former sales and marketing director with Knutsford-based Living Ventures, invested around £500,000 in the original Residence, which is set in an historic listed building on Mill Street, Nantwich.
“We had a really good first year, we hit all the numbers we needed to, and we’re now geared up for Christmas.”
Residence, which employs more than 30 people, turnover over £1m in its first year, Mr Rafferty said.
“This year will be tougher, because of the credit crunch, but I believe there will be opportunities for the right management teams with the right sites. There are a lot of casualties at the moment, and I think we will see more in the first two months after Christmas.
“Our plan is to open seven to 10 Residences over the next five years and a similar number of our pub brand concept.”
He said there were a number of investors ready to back them, while other capital raising schemes were being examined.
“We are cautious, you have to be in this climate, but I think there’s still some fantastic opportunities out there. There are people too, who having invested in the licensed trade before, and done well, who have the confidence to do so again.”
The leisure sector has been battered by a clutch of bad news, from the economic downturn which has hit consumer spending, hikes in food and energy prices, the impact of the smoking ban and recent duty increases on alcohol.
