Peach opens first city centre pub

Peach has unveiled the latest addition to its pub estate — an £800,000 investment in a new build site, the Almanack in Leicester city centre.

The new pub is Peach's eleventh and is leased from Hammerson, the developers of the city's flagship High Cross retail and leisure centre complex.

It is the second Almanack to be opened by Peach and will be followed in two weeks' time by the launch of the company's first wet-led operation, the James Figg, in Thame, Oxfordshire.

The 3,800 square foot unit Almanack will have covers for 120 diners plus a 60 seater private meeting room and provide jobs for 25 full and part-time staff.

"This is probably our most ambitious project to date and the first venue we have ever located in a city centre," said Peach's co-founder Lee Cash.

"We are breaking new ground in something which represents a slightly different retail product for us. 

"Our big challenge here is to make the Almanack a destination venue and encourage a middle class audience to travel into the city centre for a gastro pub experience instead of a more market town environment.

"The big question is can we replicate in Leicester the success of our other sites which are all located in market towns?"

Peach has cut no corners on expenditure on the new venue after inheriting a virtual shell building from Hammerson.

A total of £400,000 has been spent on internal building work and £110,000 on state-of-the-art kitchens with a further £100,000 on fixtures and fittings, £30,000 on the bar and another £30,000 on IT, tills and music systems.

It has agreed a 100,000 a year rental figure with Hammerson.

Much of the investment was facilitated by loan funding from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Peach has revealed it has already received more than 1,000 covers in advance bookings over the next three weeks.