in brief

£500,000 conversion

Corum bar and restaurant opened in Battersea, London, last week. The 50-seat venue took three months to convert at a cost of £500,000. The site previously housed an Indonesian restaurant called Equator.

Travel inn opening

The third Travel Inn in Southampton is due to open in February. Construction began in January on the 172-bedroom budget hotel, which will employ 60 staff managed by Gary Villiers. Whitbread is investing £7.1m in the hotel, which will be the 278th in the UK.

Up and running

GTC Café has opened inside the General Trading Company shop in Chelsea, London. The 44-seat café is operated by caterer Searcy's, which has appointed Samantha Moores as manager and Gordon Gallatly as chef. The café serves breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea.

Glenroy hotel deal

Tim and Rosalind Forester, former owners of the Dukes hotel, Bath, have bought the 44-bedroom Glenroy hotel in Clifton, Bristol, from Mike and Jean Winyard, who ran it for 31 years. The Foresters will rename it the Victoria Square hotel.

Free fruit for kids

The West Midlands will be the first full region of England to benefit from a Government scheme which aims to offer all four- to six-year-old schoolchildren a free piece of fruit each day from 2004.