Whitbread to spread Life Café concept
Whitbread Inns has bought the Life Café bar-restaurant in Liverpool and plans to spend £40m opening a chain of 20 across the UK.
Life Café opened in Liverpool's Bold Street 15 months ago. It covers 9,000sq ft and combines a 120-seat restaurant with a café-bar and a late-night music and comedy venue.
The bar and restaurant appeal mainly to the 25-plus age group, particularly women, while the late-night venue attracts a slightly younger crowd.
Included in the deal is a second branch under construction in Manchester.
Life Café was developed by entrepreneurs Jeremy Roberts, Tim Bacon and Dave Hinds. The trio also founded the Via Vita café-bar chain, which they sold to Marston's two-and-a-half years ago (Caterer, 5 March 1998, page 8). Hinds said he and his colleagues planned to stay with Whitbread to help open a further eight to 10 sites.
Whitbread believes it has identified a "lost generation" of customers aged between 26 and 35, who still enjoy a night on the town but are weary of queuing for nightclubs or jostling for bar service and are no longer content with a late-night kebab or curry.
