Restaurant chain announces opening of 200th branch
Restaurant chain Loungers has announced the opening of its 200th venue.
The firm which was launched by three friends in Bristol just over 20 years ago has been on a major expansion drive.
The operator of all day café/bar/restaurants across the UK under the Louge, Cosy Club and Brightside brands has announced that it has opened its 200th Lounge – Verdetto Lounge in Buckingham.
The landmark site will offer all-day food and drink with a real focus on making a positive impact on the local community.
Each new Lounge opening results in an investment of nearly £1m into the local high street and the creation of up to 30 new jobs on average
Once open, the Lounge team work hard to make close connections in their local area, working with community groups and nurturing charity partnerships.
Facilitating and organising up to 10,000 events per year held within its Lounges, from parent and baby groups and coffee mornings to quiz nights and painting classes, Loungers uses its sites as places to bring communities together in an authentic and mutually beneficial way.
Loungers recently stated its firm belief that there is scope for at least 600 Lounges across the UK, and also announced that it intends to open 34 new sites across its three brands in the current financial year alone.
The Lounge opening brings the total estate size up to 238, including 35 Cosy Clubs and three Brightsides.
Alex Reilley, chairman and co-founder of Loungers, said: “We are hugely proud of the positive impact that our sites have had on local communities right across the UK since opening the first Lounge 21 years ago. We are determined to continue playing a major role in breathing new life into high streets, as well as creating and sustaining much needed local employment.
“Time and time again we’ve seen that the opening of a Lounge has a really positive knock-on effect on the businesses around it and, of course, on the local employment market. Last year alone we created around 1,000 new jobs through new site openings and are on course to comfortably exceed that figure in the current year.
“To be opening our 200th Lounge is a fantastic landmark, but there is lots more for us to go for. We firmly believe that there is scope to have at least three times that number of Lounges in the longer term, and we are more ambitious than ever before about our plans for the future.”
