SLTN Award-winning group continues ambitious expansion
GLASGOW-based bar and restaurant group Kained Holdings is poised for further expansion with the launch of three outlets before the end of the year, taking its portfolio to ten.
The company, which won a clutch of SLTN Awards earlier this month, including SLTN Independent Multiple Operator of the Year, will open the Kelbourne Saint in Glasgow’s west end next week, followed by another bar and a social enterprise deli in the Finnieston area of the city before Christmas.
Located in the former Crosslands bar on Queen Margaret Drive, which Kained bought the freehold of last year and operated as So, What Comes Next? while securing the required permissions for the refurb, the Kelbourne Saint will open following a £500,000 refurbishment to transform the 240-capacity outlet into a “family friendly” venue.
The group, which was set up by Graham Suttle, Mo Clark and Scott Arnott in 2007, will then go on to open a further two venues: a “classic Victorian-style” pub in the former Rockus bar on Argyle Street and a deli in a former locksmiths next to Lebowskis, also on Argyle Street, which will be run as a social enterprise employing disadvantaged young people, tying in with the work Kained already does with charities like The Prince’s Trust and Yes Chef.
The outlets, which come in the same year Kained launched The Drugstore Social and Lebowskis south side, will take the group’s portfolio to ten venues by the close of the year and is part of a broader expansion plan to open two outlets a year over the coming three years.
“Two a year until 2020 is the strategy, even though we’ve gone beyond that this year,” said Graham Suttle, MD of Kained Holdings, which also picked up the SLTN Cocktail Bar of the Year Award for The Finnieston and Craft Beer Award for The Crafty Pig while Callum Neilly, of Lebowskis west end, was named Bartender of the Year.
“Next year we’ll probably have one major acquisition and then consolidate and invest further in the development of our team. We’ve got a great team; I’m really proud of how everyone has pulled together.
“And we were over the moon to win the SLTN Awards. The individual ones really reflect what we put our focus on and to win Independent Multiple Operator – that just topped it off.”
