Welsh move for Café Corp

Cafe Corporation, a catering firm set up last year by two former Compass Services employees, is to open a 60-seat public restaurant at a science centre due to reopen in May on a new site at Cardiff Bay.

The Techniquest centre, which in its first two years at the new site is expected to receive 500,000 visitors, many of them school groups, will also have a mobile espresso cart service provided by Café Corporation.

The deal brings Café Corporation's total number of contracts to 11. It operates outlets at retail and public sites including two Co-op superstores in Derby and Bradstock, near Bath, and five Whittard of Chelsea coffee shops across the South-east.

Café Corporation was founded in March 1994 by David Winter and David Mills, who are both former business development executives with the commercial division of Compass Services.

Mr Winter told Caterer the pair hoped to win four further contracts by the end of July, one of which would be to operate an English tea room concept for a chain of department stores.

He added that turnover for the company, which currently employs around 70 people, was expected to reach more than £1m by the end of its second financial year, in March 1996.