Bella Italia to announce crop of new openings
Italian-style restaurant group Bella Italia is to open a group of new sites in the next few months, with Gallions Reach near Barking in east London confirmed for autumn this year.
No further information has been released at this stage, but a spokesperson for Bella Italia confirmed that new sites were in the pipeline and would be officially announced shortly.
The 60-acre shopping centre and leisure park Gallions Reach also features fast-casual chicken group Nando's, as well as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Robins Pie & Mash.
The new openings come just three months after the group revealed plans for five new sites by mid-June, including Filton; Hemel Hempstead; Taplow; Castlegate, Dudley; and Ashton Leisure Park, Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside.
In July last year Bella Italia announced it planned to open 100 new restaurants by 2019, after owner Tragus initiated CVAs for a number of uneconomic sites (along with another Tragus brand, Café Rouge). The group confirmed that it had then secured £100m of funding to help it expand and refurbish its estate.
First founded in 1970s London as a US-style pizza chain named Pizzaland, the group now named Bella Italia currently has over 70 sites across the UK, including two in Edinburgh, one in Cardiff, and 14 in central London.
It also has locations in two Centre Parcs sites, and within a host of shopping centres, including the Cambridge Grafton Centre, Plymouth Barbican Leisure Park, and the Leeds Centre 27. Its most recently-announced opening was Taplow.
Bella Italia to open 100 sites in five years >>