Thu 21st Aug 2014 - TLC Inns adds two sites in £1.7m expansion TLC Inns adds two sites in £1.7m expansion: TLC Inns, the award-winning pub and restaurant operator led by Steve and Jo Haslam, has added two new sites in an £1.7m expansion drive that will see the company grow to ten venues by the end of this year from its current seven-strong size. The company, which has produced Ebitda of £500,0000 in the first four months of its financial year, has secured the commercial lease on the former Glasshouse, a 5,000 square foot site in Colchester. It will see a £250,000 investment before re-opening as the company’s fourth Grand Central Bar and Grill in about six weeks’ time. Propel previously reported the company has invested £640,000 on a 6,000 square foot site on Ipswich Quayside that will see a further £750,000 investment before opening at the end of a year as a Grand Central. TLC’s first Grand Central in Basildon is currently achieving 30% like-for-like sales growth more than two years after it opened on the site of a former Outback Steakhouse. Said Haslam: “Grand Central in Basildon is still seeing phenomenal growth – even though it’s a couple of miles away from the Festival Leisure site in the town. It’s also climbed to third on TripAdvisor.” Meanwhile, TLC Inns has also added its first Charles Wells site to the estate, a former Orchid site, in Ely, Cambridgeshire called the High Flyer, which has 120 covers. There will be £100,000 co-investment before it re-opens as a carvery – it will be TLC Inns’ third site in the city. Haslam said: “The eating out market in Ely has exploded. It’s very eclectic with lots of different offers but it doesn’t have a family pub.” Last month, Haslam reported TLC Inns expects sales for its Grand Central brand to exceed an annualised £5m per annum once it reaches four units this summer. He added: “We are planning to double in size Grand Central in the next two years, to at least six units. In addition, we are still actively looking for good pub opportunities.” TLC Inns was founded with three Enterprise Inns sites but has since added freeholds and free-of-tie leases.