Franco Manca owner Fulham Shore spots expansion opportunities in coronavirus chaos
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Fulham Shore, the owner of restaurant chains Franco Manca and The Real Greek, is eyeing expansion due to the low rents and empty venues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The firm said this morning that “the future looks promising” as more sites become available and with rents “likely to be falling for the next few years”.
Fulham Shore is planning to open new Franco Manca or Real Greek sites in towns and cities such as Newcastle, Canterbury, Cardiff and Glasgow.
It said the “tribulations” of distressed UK businesses and their landlords has resulted in the group “being offered more new sites than we can possibly view”.
“We feel the longer we wait for even the best of these sites the lower the rents we can achieve,” Fulham Shore chairman David Page said.
“We believe this situation may last at least 5 years.”
He added that the restaurant market in the UK was “heading for a correction well before the coronavirus outbreak”.
“There were too many restaurant businesses with owners and managers convinced they could swim like Mark Spitz, but which were actually being kept afloat by some badly made rubber rings and various leaky flotation devices,” he said.
The crisis has also sparked a shift away from central London to the suburbs or regional towns.
The West End and other metropolitan areas such as central Manchester used to be home to the busiest restaurants in the UK.
But since the pandemic the focus has shifted to regional restaurants, which are “currently breaking trading records on a weekly basis.”
Fulham Shore also posted a 7.2 per cent jump in revenue for the year ended 31 March, reaching £68.6m.