Living Ventures co-founder Danny Fox to launch £1m ‘wood-fired’ restaurant concept: Living Ventures co-founder and former Individual Restaurant Company operations director Danny Fox is to launch a new £1m “wood-fired” restaurant concept, creating more than 50 jobs. Hale is opening Fox in September in Altrincham on the site of the former Co-op in Hale Barns Square, a 4,000 square foot unit fronting on to Hale Road and adjacent to Booths supermarket Fox said the restaurant’s concept is one he has been working on “for many years”. He told Altrincham Today: “There’s no one nationality to the food – it’s a wood-fired concept. We’ll be cooking amazing steaks and fish on a huge grill, and we’ll also be offering fantastic pizzas cooked in a huge wood-fired pizza oven. It’s very much a concept for 2016 – there’ll be an eye on healthy lifestyle food too, but really we just want to give the people what they want.” The new restaurant is currently under construction, with interior design being handled by London-based practice Alexander Waterworth. Fox said it would look “very classy, very slick, very New York, very London”. The 120-cover restaurant is scheduled to open in the first week of September. As well as lunch and dinner, Fox will also be opening for breakfasts and an outside seating area will be following next year. The new restaurant is the penultimate unit to be filled in the redeveloped Hale Barns Square, following the arrival of Costa Coffee, Pets Corner and Fired Earth – as well as the anchor tenant Booths. Fox founded Living Ventures with the late Tim Bacon and Jeremy Roberts and helped grow the Living Room bar chain before selling it to Premium Bars and Restaurants. He was formerly operations director at Individual Restaurant Company, which operates 32 sites nationally including Piccolino – which has a Hale restaurant – and Restaurant Bar & Grill, Bank Restaurant and Zinc Bar & Grill. Fox said he hoped his new venture was just what Hale Barns wanted. He added: “I’m really looking forward to it, and the goodwill coming from people in Hale Barns so far has been fantastic. No-one has put a great restaurant right in the middle of Hale Barns before, and hopefully it will be just what the public want.”