Suburban Bar Co creates new group to run wet-led pubs

Suburban Style Bar has created a subsidiary company to manage the 10 freehold wet-led pubs it bought earlier this year.

Beacon Pub Company will run as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suburban and will be led by Andy Longman, who founded the company in 2000 and is its managing director.

While he will remain Suburban's main man, Longman plans to focus on building the wet led Beacon Pubs' brand throughout 2008.

The day-to-day running of Suburban will now be handled by its current operations manager, Mark Yates, who has been with the company since it was founded.

For operational purposes, Suburban has now been split into two income streams, "drinks led", and "drinks led with bistro food".

Beacon Pub Co was founded after Suburban acquired the 10 pubs in March this year from a Bradford-based property firm, helped by a £3.6m funding package from Allied Irish Bank.

The group now operates 15 pubs, bars and bistros across West and South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, with a site set to open later this year in the Gateway development in Leeds city centre.

Longman said: "The 10 new outlets will be keeping their existing identities, although we have begun a maintenance programme which will see considerable money invested in areas such as decorating, new furniture and the construction of smoking shelters.

"Overall though, they will all benefit from our increased buying power and a vastly improved product range through our well established relationships with companies such as Scottish Courage, Black Sheep Brewery and Oddbins."