Cosy Club group planning huge cafe-bar expansion
THE company behind Cosy Club and Lounges is planning to open hundreds more cafe-bars across the UK after reporting a surge in sales over six months.
The Loungers Group, which operates 133 Lounges outlets and 28 Cosy Club branches, has announced a 22% jump in revenues to £79.8m for the 24 weeks to October 6.
The group appears to be bucking the highstreet downturn, confirming plans to open 25 more sites in 2020 and eventually opening more than 400 Lounges and 100 Cosy Clubs across the UK.
There are 10 Lounges across Wales including the Corvo Lounge in Bridgend, as well as three in Cardiff, and one in Swansea, Newport, Carmarthen, Bangor, Abergavenny and Monmouth.
There will be 10 new branches in the first six months of the financial year including Lounges in Sutton, Watford, Sittingbourne and Chorley, and Cosy Clubs in Nottingham and Birmingham.
It is a believed a Loungers venue will be one of the sites in the Barry Island’s Nell’s Point development, which will see a Grade II-listed toilet block converted into four restaurants or cafes.
The company hailed strong organic sales across its sites and saw a narrowing of losses to a total loss before tax of £2.5m – down from a £4.2m loss the year before.
Nick Collins, chief executive officer of Loungers, said: “I am delighted to announce another strong set of results which continue to highlight our consistent outperformance against the market.
“This will be the fifth consecutive year we have opened at least 20 new sites and we remain excited by the prospects and potential for both our Lounge and Cosy Club formats and the significant opportunity we have ahead of us.
“Looking ahead, the strength of our FY20 openings to date and the continued evolution of our offer further underpins our confidence in continuing our current growth rate of 25 new openings per year and the potential for more than 400 Lounges and 100 Cosy Clubs across the UK.”
Analysts at Liberum added: “Loungers continues to outperform, delivering the scarce trinity of like-for-like sales growth, unit growth and margin growth.
“The latest menu and drinks refresh has been well received and new supplier terms should provide margin momentum in the second half and beyond despite the well-publicised industry cost headwinds.”