Inc Group lines up Elbow Room purchase

Bar and restaurant operator Inc Group has snapped up The Elbow Room, a pool lounge and bar chain, for an undisclosed fee.

The buy adds to Inc Group’s interests in the O2, where it operates Inc Brasserie and Urban Inc, and throughout Greenwich where it runs the Trafalgar Tavern pub and the Spread Eagle restaurant.

Inc Group, which is owned by US entrepreneur Frank Dowling, took control of the leases of its two sites at the O2 in December after former holders Glorious Group collapsed.

Dowling said that activity-based leisure venues were in a growth phase at the moment.

The first Elbow Room was opened in Westbourne Grove in London in 1995, and has expanded to sites in Islington and Shoreditch as well as Bristol and Leeds.

The venues had a combined turnover of approximately £6m a year and the buy takes privately-held Inc Group's portfolio to 26 sites with a turnover of approximately £30m a year.

Glorious Group goes under >>

By Christopher Walton

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