Loungers' new site in Southampton

Loungers — the Bristol-based cafe-bar business that picked up the Most Impressive Growth award at this year's MA150 awards — has opened a new site in a suburban part of Southampton and has two openings lined up for the next six months.

The company has spent £335,000 converting a former Pizza Hut in the Portswood area into Trago Lounge, a venue with 130 covers internally and 70 externally.

Co-founder Alex Reilley said: "Southampton is an odd city really — the centre was decimated in the war so the secondary areas have stayed strong.

"The site is situated close to the university and we've turned an old storage room into a good-sized external area."

Loungers is also working on its first site in Birmingham's Harborne area — the conversion of a Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society branch, which is scheduled to open in January 2010 as Arco Lounge.

The opening after that will be in Plymouth.

The company is taking a site in the former 19-acre naval supply yard, which is being redeveloped by Urban Splash.

The area is being sympathetically redeveloped, with the BBC expected to take up occupation of a large area.

Meanwhile, Flatcappers, a sister business Reilley runs with ex-Bibendum general manager Pierre Woodford, has opened its second pub, the Bell, in Rode, Somerset.

Flatcappers, which already runs the Castle Inn in Bradford-upon-Avon, has taken a free-of-tie lease on a Wellington Pub Company site.

A total of £250,000 has been spent on acquiring the lease and undertaking a refurbishment that has seen the bar extended and the kitchen renovated.

Flatcappers' first pub has been enjoying 20% like-for-like sales growth for the second consecutive year this year.