Mission Mars set to bring Albert’s Schloss south for biggest venue yet in £8m investment: Mission Mars is set to bring Albert’s Schloss south for the concept’s biggest venue yet, in London’s West End, in an £8m investment. The operator of Albert’s Schenke, Albert Hall and Rudy’s Pizza Napoletana has taken the 18,000 square-foot former Rainforest Cafe site in Shaftesbury Avenue for what will be the concept’s fourth site, and first in the south east. Opening in the spring of 2024, the Alpine cook haus and Bavarian bier palace concept will create 200 jobs and feature nightly performances from artists. Roy Ellis, chief executive of Mission Mars, said: “It’s a stunning 18,000 square-foot space in the famous Trocadero in the heart of the West End. The Trocadero has a long and rich history of hosting world renowned restaurants, bars and theatres. We’ve designed a beautiful space that pays homage to all these facets including more than 500 covers for Cook Haus dining, four bars measuring over 45 metres in length, and a stage to catch our unmissable live bands, cabaret and gospel choirs, who make up part of an impressive showtime line up. On the ground floor, we will offer a taste of our in-haus bakery, plus tankards of Europe’s finest biers and Pilsners, as well as our artisan schnapps experiences. The lower ground will host Albert’s Schloss, with its focus on seven days of showtime in beautiful Bavarian bier palace surroundings. Ludwig’s Tavern, our Alpine inspired chalet, is a tribute to ‘Mad King Ludwig’ of Bavaria and is filled with whimsical design elements as well as roaring fires, shuffleboard and other tavern games. As in other cities, Schloss will recruit the best artistic talent available and offer totally unique entertainment seven days a week.” Albert’s Schloss currently operates in Manchester, Birmingham and, most recently, Liverpool, which has had a record-breaking opening trading period since its December 2022 launch. The London site is being leased to Mission Mars by P-THREE.

Two days to go before next edition of The New Openings Database release, to show details on 121 new sites, 5,600-word report included: The next edition of The New Openings Database will show the details of 121 newly announced site openings and upcoming launches for Premium subscribers when it is published on Friday (2 June), at midday, including which company has opened a site or its plans to open one in the future. It will have details on what type of site it is and its location, and there will also be a website link to the businesses. The database is published on a monthly basis, and the next edition features growing restaurant and café brands, niche cuisine, and expanding experiential concepts. Premium subscribers will also receive a 5,600-word report on the new additions to the database. Premium subscribers also receive access to four other databases: the Propel Multi-Site Database, produced in association with Virgate; the Propel Turnover & Profits Blue Book; the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database; and the Who’s Who of UK Food and Beverage. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Propel Premium for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or a supplier. The single subscription rate is £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Email jo.charity@propelinfo.com to upgrade your subscription. Premium subscribers are also to be given exclusive access to the recording and slides to Propel Multi-Club Conferences. Premium subscribers also receive their morning newsletter 11 hours early, at 7pm the evening before; regular video content and regular exclusive columns from Propel group editor Mark Wingett.

MasterChef winner – energy bills make you think about every aspect of the menu: Simon Wood, MasterChef winner in 2015 and founder of the WOOD restaurant in Manchester, has said energy bills are forcing chefs to think about every aspect of the menu. He told The Daily Telegraph his energy bill last month was £13,400, but that ingredients, staff wages, rents and Brexit-related costs for importing wine and driving up costs too. “I am thinking about every aspect of my menu, every dish and every process…if I have a braised piece of beef that has to be in the oven all night, it’s a ‘no’,” he said. “The oil in my fryer is more expensive than unleaded at Shell.” His restaurant offers a £110 tasting menu, but also a “bargain” cheeseboard and wine selection for £25, which from June will go up to £30. Stuart Procter, chief operating officer of the Stafford Collection, which owns various establishments, including the Sicilian-inspired Norma in central London, said it has taken monkfish off the menu. “The price to buy it has just gone off the charts,” he told the newspaper. “If we were to make any margin on it, it would have to be on the menu at £50 or £60. That might work in Mayfair, but that’s not what Norma is about.” His main courses range between £24 and £45, and he believes London is still good value compared with many other European cities. “If you think we are expensive, you should look at Paris,” he added. “Wow, that’s expensive.” There are some in London who reckon it is possible to offer value-for-money with a set menu, the report said. Bellamy’s, in Mayfair, has a successful table d’hôte menu at £29.50 for two courses or £35 for three. Owner Gavin Rankin said: “I think some restaurants are charging too much – way too much.” He believes many of his rivals have just passed on costs rather than working out if they can make any savings themselves and has decided to close the restaurant on Saturday rather than pay for another chef and waiter. “I’m afraid my colleagues do tend to [complain] when there’s a crisis and then put up their prices,” he added. “The root of this, in my view, was when VAT was relaxed during covid. Restaurateurs got very used to lower VAT, but when it was reinstated back to 20%, a lot of them thought, ‘hang on, that’s our lawful profit.’ It wasn’t.”

Leon owner EG Group agrees to sell UK&I petrol and forecourt operations for £2.3bn: The billionaire Issa brothers behind Leon owners EG Group have agreed to sell the group’s UK & Ireland petrol and forecourt operations to Asda in a £2.3bn deal that will add £770m in new loans onto the business empire’s already heavy debts. Asda, like EG Group, is owned by Zuber and Mohsin Issa and TDR Capital, the private equity group. The tie-up is expected to create a combined business worth about £10bn and will allow the supermarkets chain to expand further into convenience retail, reports The Times. The combined group is expected to serve about 21 million customers a week and will have revenues of nearly £30bn. Asda will now operate about 640 supermarkets, 700 petrol forecourts and 1,000 takeaways, and all the EG sites acquired will be rebranded as Asda. However, to fund the deal, Asda is raising £450m from shareholders, including the Issa brothers and TDR Capital, and is borrowing £770m through the loan market. A further £1.1bn will be raised through the sale and leaseback of Asda superstores, adding new financial liabilities on to the business. The entirety of EG Group, which also operates in the US and Australia, ended 2022 with net debt of $9.6bn, while Asda ended the year with £4bn of debt. Clive Black, an analyst at Shore Capital, said the debt level was “very high compared with key market competitors”, which would make it harder to be competitive on price. The GMB union has raised concerns about the “debt-laden” merger and said that the deal required scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). But the CMA said the ultimate owners of Asda were the same owners in the same proportion of ownership as EG Group, and therefore the merger would not qualify for a review. Lord Rose of Monewden, who will chair both businesses, insisted the deal would not lead to higher prices. He said the business would have a “fully sustainable capital structure” and that adding profits from EG’s UK forecourts would help to service its debts. The EG Group debt is due to be refinanced in 2025.

Excluding glass from DRS likely to drive up price of drinks in cans and plastic bottles: The cost of drinks sold in cans and plastic bottles will increase because of glass being excluded from the deposit return scheme (DRS), the minister in charge of the plans has warned. Lorna Slater, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, attacked the UK government for forcing Holyrood ministers to overhaul the scheme, which is due to go live in Scotland next summer. Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, wrote to the Scottish government on Friday, granting the exemption to the Internal Market Act needed for the scheme to operate – but said the inclusion of glass could risk a “permanent divergence” between the UK and Scotland. But Slater said that “removing glass risks significant knock-on effects, changing fees on plastic and cans to cover sunk costs of glass”, reports The Times. She also warned that removing glass at the last minute “risks critically undermining the viability” of the scheme, but said officials were examining ways forward in a sign that the Scottish government would concede to the demands. The scheme was due to be launched in August but was delayed after criticism from businesses. Pete Cheema, chief executive of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation, reiterated his call for the Scottish government to provide compensation to businesses left in limbo. He said: “It’s been badly dealt with, it’s been badly handled, and to be honest, it has been a total farce.” Sarah Boyack, Scottish Labour’s net zero spokeswoman, said the recycling scheme had been reduced to another constitutional row between two governments. She added: “We urgently need co-operation between our two governments to deliver a recycling scheme that works, not petty political point scoring.”