Jones Bar Group entrepreneurs expand their Leeds empire with Slate

THE entrepreneurs behind Leeds entertainment and drinking staples Roxy Lanes and Ball Room launched their newest venture last week.

Just before the official opening of bar brand Slate, director of the group Matthew Jones sat down to discuss the plans for future expansion, whilst his brother Ben Jones was up a ladder working on installing electrical wires, and operations and finance manager Ben Warren came in looking surprisingly fresh-faced after a stag party.

This is a proper hands-on business, they work hard, and they play hard.

Matthew Jones said: “We’re hugely involved day-to-day and have a growing middle management team to keep up with the goings-on at all our venues.”

Slate, located on Merrion Street, has been a long-term labour of love for the Jones team.

“We had our eye on the site for three years,” he said “and there were contracts going back and forth to take on the space, but it fell through right at the last minute. Now we’ve finally got it and it couldn’t be at a better time.

“This area of the city has undergone major development. In the past 12 months it has just exploded as a thriving area of the city with loads of independent and different bars and restaurants moving in, whilst the chains move towards the south of the city.

“The southern part of Leeds is busy as hell, with so many tourists and stag and hen parties going there, but here we have developed a Leeds place for Leeds people.

The presence of the arena and the Grand Theatre has done wonders, but there were concerns over the saturation of the area. “I don’t see it as a competition though,” said Mr Jones, “We’re all working towards the same goal.”

Merrion Street and the surrounding areas has had “peaks and troughs” in popularity over 20 years, said Mr Jones, but it has proved itself to be on a par with the other main areas in Leeds for bars, Call Lane and Boar Lane with Trinity Leeds right in the middle.

“We’re going for simple food, but not bog-standard, it’s top quality. Because we have now got so many bars in our portfolio, and there are so many bars in the area, each needs to to have a different theme and identity.

“Our Roxy concept has been our biggest success to date” despite only opening in 2013, Mr Jones said “we knew it would be a success before we opened, we wanted to do something else, not just food and drink, and that’s where the games came in.”

As a USP, the bowling at Roxy Lanes, ping pong tables and pool tables at new offering Slate have risen the bar for entertainment in Leeds, and was inspired by places such as Bounce in London.

With the closing of The Elbow Room on Leeds’ south side, the pool room concept needed a reboot at a different site, he said.

“People are spending a lot of money in Leeds now and there is a lot of choice, so we have to have a unique concept, which is why Roxy and our other brands have done so well, it’s not just food and drink, we have something different to offer.

“The gaming thing is a new step forward, Roxy has bowling, and with Slate, it’s pool.”

Coming up with a different concept of theme every time when you already have a portfolio of eight brands seems a bit of a tall order, but the Jones brothers and their team, including operations manager Ben Warren, don’t seem to want to concentrate too much on one brand. But is there room for another Jones bar elsewhere?

“The concepts I might consider growing and moving forward into other areas are definitely Roxy and Slate.

They both come with different challenges though – Roxy needs a huge space, that sometimes only a basement or first floor could provide. Slate needs an older pub to remake – it’s all about the site and we’ll take time over that before rushing into anything.”

Manchester and Sheffield are on the cards for this expansion, and although outside investment is an option for the group, they have been self-funded so far.

“We’ve owned our own business for 10 years,” Mr Jones said. “The involvement of a third party would definitely bother me, I’d prefer to grow organically. We love working and if we exited, we’d move onto the next thing straight away.”