Living Room branches out into cocktail bars

Living Ventures, the company that owns six-strong bar chain The Living Room, is expanding with a new brand.

Director of sales and marketing Paul Newman said the company would be spending some of its time this year expanding its new Mosquito cocktail bars, possibly through acquisitions.

Newman would not comment on which companies Living Ventures was looking at but added that there were “plenty of opportunities out there at the moment.”

Living Room: more planned

The Living Room, the company’s main brand, is also being expanded. Four more sites are scheduled to open this year, including one in Leeds in June, one in London’s West End in September, one in York in November, and another in an unnamed major UK city.

Ten more sites are planned for the following two years in places such as Sheffield, Oxford, Brighton and another in London. Scotland is a further potential target.

The group said trading over the Christmas period had been strong, with like-for-like food sales increasing by 39% in December. Bar sales increased up by 29% and profits were up by 75%.

Between April and December 2002 total turnover at the group’s six outlets increased by 122% to £9.14m. Profits rose by 129%. Like-for-like turnover increased by 46.8% and like-for-like profits were up by 44%.

Living Ventures was set up in 1998 and is owned by entrepreneurs Tim Bacon and Jeremy Roberts. Its first Living Room bar and restaurant opened in Manchester in December 1999. Mosquito opened in Liverpool in June 2001.