BYOB plans expansion over next two years

BYOB Restaurants, the Bristol-based restaurant group, expects to secure £1.5m in venture capital funding in January which will allow it to open eight outlets in the next two years.

The group, which already has five restaurants trading in Bristol, will open a Hullaballoos restaurant in Peter Street, Manchester, in February and expects to open in Leeds and Newcastle soon afterwards. Sites in London are also being pursued.

"We have exhausted Bristol and we won't do anything more there," said Adrian Portlock, managing director of BYOB. "Expansion has so far been funded by trading profits, but the venture capital will allow us to pick up a gear."

Four more restaurants are due to open in 1999. Other cities targeted by the group include Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Oxford.