Burger chain Byron eyes five more sites
Upmarket burger chain Byron could add up to five new outlets to its estate in the next 12 months, including a new venue set to open at the One New Change development near London's St Paul's in October.
Owner Tom Byng told Caterer that the company had no firm plans on where it thought to open its other venues, although they are all expected to be leasehold properties within London and its more affluent suburbs.
"We are not obsessed with numbers in terms of new sites. We are just out there trying to do a good job of doing really great hamburgers. You learn a lot with each site, so we are looking to do four to five more in the next 12 months. But we review it as we go along. We don't say ‘we want to have this many restaurants,'" he said.
So far, One New Change is the only site in Byron's pipeline of new projects to have been confirmed. "There's not many places that you can go in the City which have a good mix of retail and restaurants so on paper it looks like something that should work," he added.
Meanwhile, Byng revealed that the chain's annual turnover hit £10m for the financial year to June 2010 and is turning a profit, although he declined to reveal how much.
But he indicated that the company was in "good shape", helped by the fact that it is new and relatively small, as well as the fact that its central London sites have helped shield it from the worst effects of the recession.
"We think there are plenty more people trading down from £25-30 per head to us than there are people trading down from us to say McDonald's.
"We are really small but we are seeing some really positive like-for-likes in our sites that have been open for more than 12 months," he said.
Timeline - Byron's growth so far
â- Kingston - June 2008
â- Westfield - Oct 2008
â- Gloucester Road - Nov 2008
â- King's Road - Dec 2008
â- Soho - Dec 2009
â- Islington - April 2010
â- Covent Garden - June 2010
â- Canary Wharf - June 2010
â- Old Brompton - Road July 2010
Restaurateurs less gloomy about the future, finds report >>](http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/08/10/329151/Restaurateurs-less-gloomy-about-the-future-finds-report.htm)
By Neil Gerrard
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