Good start for City Centre

City Centre Restaurants made an upbeat start to the current year, with like-for-like sales increasing by 4% in the first quarter, chairman Alan Jackson told shareholders today.

Speaking at the group's annual general meeting, Jackson said the group's "leisure park" restuarants, including Frankie and Benny's, had seen like-for-like sales rise by 3%.

Concession restaurants saw a 13% sales lift and high-street restaurants a 2% rise.

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Caffe Uno: "robust"

"We have opened six new Frankie & Benny's restaurants to date, with a further six to eight expected to open in the remainder of the year," Jackson added. The high-street restaurants business, including Est Est Est, Caffe Uno and Garfunkel's, despite the tough times in the market, remained "robust" and the sales trend experienced by the group as a whole had continued in recent weeks, he said. The sales increase is slightly down on the 6% increaseÁ‚ reported at the end of March, for the first two months of the year, when the company unveiled its full-year results. by Nic Paton