Living Ventures boss to unveil new businesses this year

The new casual-dining coffee and tea house plus deli, developed under the working title of Marmalade, will be based in a unit in Spinningfields, near to the entrepreneur’s Australasia concept, a Pacific Rim pan-Asian, casual fine-dining restaurant and bar, which will open in May.

Paul Greening, Young Australian Chef of the Year in 2004, will oversee the food offer at Australasia, which will feature a 150-cover restaurant and a 150-cover bar.

Bacon, who is opening both businesses under his New World Bar Company vehicle, told BigHospitality’s sister publication M&C Report: “I have been wanting to do a coffee/deli format for a very long time and I am very excited about this new business, which we hope to open near the end of this year.”

Red Door Neighbourhood

He is also set to open a second site for his Red Door Neighbourhood Bar & Kitchen concept, which has been described as “a bar take on a traditional pub”.

Bacon reunited with former business partner David Hinds to open the first Red Door in the West Kirby district of the Wirral.

The second Red Door is expected to open this summer in Chester.

Only opened last December in the Deansgate area of Manchester, the original Alchemist, the group’s cocktail bar with full-service restaurant, has already won plaudits and will be joined by a sister site in the city centre later this year.

Of the five restaurants Living Ventures acquired out of the restaurant portfolio of restaurateur Paul Heathcote late last year, the two Grado sites in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and Manchester have come under the group’s Blackhouse Grill portfolio and renamed the Grill on the Edge and the Grill on New York Street respectively.

Bacon hopes to convert the Olive Press site in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, into an Italian eaterie under the group’s Gusto, brand or give it a new name.

Mark Wingett is associate editor of BigHospitality's sister publication, M&C Report .