Whitbread sells Life Cafés for £1.5m

Whitbread has sold its Life Cafés to late-night bar and restaurant operator Luminar for £1.5m. Luminar acquired the Liverpool and Manchester Life Cafés and a licensed development site in Leeds. The new Cafés join Luminar's own Life Cafés in Romford, Taunton, Cardiff and Leicester. The acquisition finally puts to an end the feud between Whitbread and Luminar over who owned the brand name. Stephen Thomas, chief executive at Luminar, said that they would adjust the Liverpool and Manchester outlets slightly and develop the Leeds site into a further Life Café. He added that the acquisition had boosted their position in the marketplace and that he hoped to open many more Life Cafés in the future. Each of the Life Cafés bought from Whitbread combines a 120-seat restaurant with a café-bar and late-night music venue. Whitbread bought the Liverpool Life Café in 1998 and the Manchester branch in July 2000 and had planned to open a chain of 20 across the UK. A spokesman for Whitbread said the Life Cafés fell "outside the area of business" the company was concentrating on, namely restaurants, hotels and fitness clubs. Life Café developers Jeremy Roberts, Tim Bacon and Dave Hinds will not be moving to Luminar.