Vault pair Ben and Rob are banking on opening more bars
BEN Sellers and Rob Parker are two Derbyshire men on a mission.
They aim to open 10 hospitality venues in 10 years and, as of the weekend, they’ve already managed to open two in two years.
The entrepreneurial duo were the masterminds behind Ashbourne cocktail bar The Bank, which managed to stay on its feet throughout the pandemic and is now in fine fettle.
And as with their first cocktail bar, which rose from the ashes of a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, their second Ashbourne venture together, Vault, has transformed a former Barclays Bank branch, to a new restaurant in St John Street.
A painstaking renovation of the once heavily secured, three-storey building has taken many months and hundreds of thousands of pounds to complete, but it was finally finished in time for a glitzy black-tie preview on Friday and Saturday.
The venue will be opening to the public on Friday, but that will not be the end of the project. Ben and Rob are still hard at work creating five lavish hotel rooms on the upper floors, with the first guests set to check in in around six weeks.
The ethos of “Vault”, which welcomes guests in to its 40-cover restaurant through the massive original vault door, is bringing a taste of city life to the Peak District, explains Ben.
He said: “Everyone goes to uni, and everyone goes to London and things like that, but the one way we feel we need to rejuvenate the town, especially now Ashbourne’s had an influx of new houses, a lot of people aren’t from Ashbourne, they’re from cities. And they want a taste of what they had there.
“I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve done well at The Bank – we’re not a typical country bar or pub, we offer something people don’t expect to see in a town like Ashbourne.
“People are travelling out to the cities to get this at the moment, but this will offer them something in Ashbourne. We’re offering something against the norm.”
Between the two businesses, Vault and Bank, 25 jobs have been created, and the addition of hotel rooms will bring welcome accommodation to the town centre – although room rates are set to start at around £150.
And as Vault now nears its full opening, and the hotel rooms are almost ready for guests, Ben admits he and Rob are already on the lookout for a new venue – but, he says, it will not be in Ashbourne this time.
He said: “If we did another one in Ashbourne it would just compete with what we already have.
“Our aim is to do 10 in 10 years. We’ve done two in two years, so we’re off to a good start.”