Gourmet looks for café and patisserie
Gourmet Holdings, the owner and operator of Richoux restaurants, is aiming to acquire and develop one or more complementary café and patisserie offering in central London after its sales and profits fell throughout last year.
Its struggling financial performance over the past year will also lead to Gourmet establishing a central kitchen, which it says will "produce cost effective synergies for Richoux and any new concept we introduce" in a bid to streamline costs.
The company also disposed of its Bel and the Dragon branded pub sites to Ultimate Leisure in June for £8.75m as part of a restructuring programme aimed at making Richoux as cash-generative as possible.
Neil Blows, chairman of Gourmet Holdings, said: "As a result of the business restructuring undertaken by the previous board, we are in a strong position to enhance the Richoux brand and acquire and, or develop one or more complementary cafe/patisserie concepts in order to drive the business forward."
Sales for the 52 weeks ending 24 June fell to £10.02m, from £10.24m this time last year while pre-tax losses grew to £2.85m from £1.5m.
On Wednesday Gourmet surrendered its leasehold on its last remaining leasehold pub, the Highwayman. It had been closed since the turn of the year and had made a loss of £173,000 during the company's last financial year.
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By Christopher Walton
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