Individual Restaurants, headquartered in the North-West and overseeing a portfolio of 31 restaurants nationwide, has unveiled ambitious growth plans in the wake of a landmark year marked by record Christmas sales, strategic investments across its portfolio and impressive new openings.
The group, which owns and operates the Piccolino, Riva Blu and Restaurant Bar & Grill brands in its collection has released its accounts for the year to March 2024. The group saw its largest year with turnover of £74 million, with a like-for-like sales increase of 6%.
This was driven by impressive Christmas covers growth under the direction of a newly appointed CEO, Andrew Garton, who joined the business in January 2023, delivering a 20% increase in year-on-year sales for December 2023.
Individual Restaurants invested over £6 million within the business last year, including refurbishments and refits across its existing estate and the launch of a £2 million Piccolino Grande in Wilmslow, Cheshire. It’s Leeds Restaurant Bar & Grill, situated in the landmark Old Post Office Building in City Square, and Piccolino in Stockton Heath were two sites that underwent significant refurbishments during summer 2023.
This follows a series of renovations across the Group in recent years, including flagship Piccolino Mayfair restaurant in London, Exchange Square Piccolino in London, Bramhall Piccolino in Cheshire, Opera Grill in Chester and Bank Bar & Grill in Birmingham.
The opening of Piccolino Grande Wilmslow marked a new evolution for the much-loved authentic Italian brand, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month (October 2024), with no expense spared on the chic interior design, table-side immersive culinary experience and best in class hospitality.
The group have continued to invest in the estate in 2024, with the latest evolution of the Piccolino brand landing in the Home Counties in Marlow and Henley and further plans to grow the brand.
It is not only the estate that has experienced growth and investment but also the senior team, with Garton promoting David Carroll to Chief Business Officer and Mark Window to Group Executive Chef, as well as hiring Selena Green as Commercial and Insight Director. Staff turnover has also seen a vast improvement year-on-year, which alongside a high employee engagement score of 78%, has seen the group awarded the ‘Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2024’ listing.
Furthermore, Individual Restaurants launched a brand-new market leading loyalty scheme at the start of the year, Club IR, which ditches the tired ‘points’ based programmes and focuses on giving guests personalised offers, exceptional service and money-can’t-buy experiences across three tiers of loyalty.
The new programme was curated around valuable guest insight that showed only two in five people actually value points as part of a loyalty program, while more than half of customers prefer a variety of offers and discounts. Club IR rewards and experiences range from complimentary drinks on your birthday to exclusive invitations to VIP events, tickets to top sporting events and once-in-a-lifetime trips to top culinary destinations. The ‘concierge service’ available to Diamond members guarantees a table at any restaurant in the group, within 30 minutes of arrival, with members favourite drink ready for you at the bar whilst you wait.
Andrew Garton, CEO of Individual Restaurants, explains; “It has been a milestone year for Individual Restaurants with significant investment made across our existing estate and a continued focus on growing our portfolio of restaurants. The company continues to showcase resilient performance in the face of escalating cost-of-living challenges, maintaining a steadfast commitment to delivering a high-quality experience to all guests, along with making long-term investment initiatives.
“Guest experience is at the heart of everything we do and the launch of Club IR in January reaffirms this with a focus on truly knowing our guests as individuals. We intend to continue to invest in our established restaurants to ensure we deliver an unrivalled experience to guests, whilst setting our sights on new openings and growing further in the home counties, as well as other regions of the UK this year.”
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