The company is also believed to have exchanged contracts on another site at Fitzroy Place, as part of Exemplar’s redevelopment scheme.
The two sites will take Cubitt House’s estate to six; both are expected to operate under a new all-day restaurant and bar concept. The Kings Cross venue will span all three floors of a new building designed by Stanton Williams and cover 9,500 sq ft.
Cubitt House, which currently operates a leasehold estate of four upmarket West London pubs and hotels – The Orange on Pimlico Road, The Grazing Goat on New Quebec Street, The Pantechnicon on Motcomb Street and The Thomas Cubitt on Elizabeth Street – and employs 240 staff, is understood to be planning to grow opportunistically into a “perfectly formed” estate of eight sites within four years.
'Perfectly formed'
Director Stefan Turnbull told the PMA's sister title M&C Report: “Success for us is six to eight pubs. Eight seems to be the magic number – big enough to pay for sensible central overheads, but small enough to remain perfectly formed and to stay relevant. Much beyond that and we’d risk losing the quality we’ve achieved.”
He added that the company prefers larger sites in locations that can sustain seven-day trading.