Jamies Bars prepares to make a difference
The Hartford Group is to invest £2m in developing ten of the Jamies Bars it bought last month.
Chief executive James Kowszun last week criticised branded high street bars as being "very homogeneous, boring and dull", and said he would be looking at the Jamies name and how to improve the central London sites.
The planned investment, over two or three years, does not apply to seven individually named bars in the City, which were part of the £4.8m acquisition.
Kowszun said: "I am very under-impressed with the value of brands in our industry. There is a risk that you spend far too much time looking inwards at your brand template, rather than outwards at your customers."
He said that operators should spend more time identifying their customers and their needs at each specific location, rather than "building 22 sites with the same wallpaper".
Kowsun said that high street chains, which all had the same shade of pine strip flooring, the same bar fronts, and cheeseburgers from the same supplier, had started a high street revolution 15 years ago but had now become "dull" and "sleepy".
- Hywel Jones will be taking his 10-strong kitchen team with him when he starts cooking at London restaurant Pharmacy in mid-November. The Hartford-owned restaurant will close on 3 November for furniture re-upholstery and cleaning.
by Ben Walker
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 31 October - 6 November 2002
