Allan revives first of his rescued Fish!
Tony Allan, whose Fish! restaurant chain collapsed earlier this year, has reopened the first of the seven restaurants he bought back from receivers in August.
Allan acquired the restaurants privately, with business partner Andrew Cohen, for an undisclosed sum after the group went into administration in June.
The reopened restaurant in Borough Market, north London, was the first original Fish! to open, in 1998, and has now undergone a £150,000 refit.
Allan expects the sites he now owns to be "warmer" and more "family orientated" as a result of a refurbishment programme.
He said: "The new restaurants will be very much owner-driven and site-specific - they will be neighbourhood restaurants, rather than the regimented caf‚s they were before."
Over-expansion of the company and an aggressive opening programme were cited as reasons behind the collapse of Fish!. Allan says he will be "selectively expanding" his restaurant chain from now on.
The other Fish! restaurants Allan has bought back are to be refurbished over the next four months at an estimated cost of about £40,000 each. The six sites are at Canary Wharf, County Hall and Blackheath in London, Surbiton and Guildford in Surrey, and The Mailbox shopping mall in Birmingham.
by Helen Adkins
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 5-11 December 2002
