The Restaurant Group scales back opening programme

The Restaurant Group (TRG), which operates pub restaurants including the Brunning & Price chain as well as Garfunkel's eateries, is set to scale back its new opening programme as the economic downturn hits property development across the UK.

The group, which has reported like-for-like sales up 2.5 per cent for the first 45 weeks of 2008, said it had opened 29 new restaurants so far this year - with a total of 38 planned for the year - and the "overall performance" of these new sites had been strong.

However given the market conditions the group said it was scaling back its opening programme for the next two years, as project developers felt the full force of the economic downturn and postponed constructing the kinds of sites TRG targets.

"We would therefore anticipate opening between 18 and 25 new restaurants in 2009. Our approach continues to be based on quality rather than quantity, with projected return on capital being the determining factor in our decision to open any new restaurant," the group said.

In its interim management statement issued today the group said that taking into account acquisitions in the past year overall turnover growth had risen 16 per cent.

It said it remained on track to produce full year results in line with expectations, although in tune with virtually every other operator in the UK it warned that it was likely that 2009 would be "another tough year".

Earlier this week TRG announced former Eldridge Pope boss Tim Bird was joining the group as head of its pub restaurant division.