Help us open our third and fourth restaurants this year. St Austell and Redruth already opened in under 12 months. Two more planned
as a huge project and was opened 22 days after Ben and the team got the keys. There’s still a lot of work to do, but the customers we already have love the place.
Bystro at the Bank is a large restaurant (90+ seats) built in what was Lloyds Bank in St Austell. It now employs roughly 15 local people and has been operating for ten months. It’s a building of historic importance and had been empty since Lloyds left. We are gradually renovating and re-purposing the building. It will take a long time, but will be magnificent once finished.
The first Bystro has already generated over £250k in sales in under 12 months. It now employes 15 people and focuses on developing the team by giving employees the opportunity to train each other in their own personal skill-sets as well as bringing in outside experts.
Our customers love our relaxed atmosphere, friendly staff and quirky individuality. By keeping and adapting the bank’s offices we have been able to offer free meeting spaces for community groups with nowhere else to go. We currently host Cornish Language classes, the local Salsa classes, the MP’s monthly town surgeries, some reading groups and other small groups. We don’t charge for these facilities, but our visitors buy drinks and food.
We’ve also showcased local music and theatre talent with over 100 live gigs, twice monthly comedy nights with comedians from all over the country and monthly amateur dramatics and dance shows for the local youth groups are always well attended.
Our current customer base is roughly 75% female, this is because we offer a safe, secure and a more adult venue where they can relax away from the tradional dingy pubs full of drunks and fighting.
Open from 10am until 11pm seven days a week we have a very flexible approach to supporting our local customers.
We have also supported our staff by putting seven members on apprenticeship programs and are heavily focused on personal development and progression, team building and skills training.
There is still work to do in our St Austell restaurant and it’s ready for the next stages of development including converting the bank vault into an interactive activity room suitable for various types of team building activity and private functions. We also want to convert some of the office space on the first floor into a wedding and function venue, something the town would really benefit from, increasing the earning and job creation potential instantly.
This building is a striking gothic temperance bar, built to look after the town’s miners and incidentally their rugby team. It started life as the Lamb and Flag and still has the lamb above the front doors. Children from a local school will create a new version of the Town flag, which used to be there, too.
It now employs eight local people (and growing rapidly) and has been operating for eight weeks. We are filling it with life for the current town’s residents.
Current projections are heading towards a turnover of £150k to £200k in the first 12 months.
We have also recently built a temporary bar and dining area in the basement where we’d like to host more comedy nights and live music in Redruth, a town currently without such facilities. We had to do this quickly as we’ve been so busy at weekends we were turning customers away and this now operates as an overflow dining room.
The next stage of development is to move the kitchen upstairs and build a proper bar to go with our dining room. Once we have a bigger kitchen we will be able to support outside dining in the courtyard outside the town’s Market House, which the Town Council are keen for us to do in order to help increase footfall to the market traders and help increase footfall and spend within the town itself.
Our restaurants are situated in gorgeous old buildings which may otherwise remain empty and fall into disrepair, but more importantly we are opening restaurants in towns that are trying to regenerate and develop stronger high street footfall and often have limited local dining options.
The benefits to these towns include local employment, local product sourcing, an increase in local spending, an additional choice of daytime and evening eating and drinking facilities, meeting spaces and regular free, live entertainment. A social hub if you like.
We want to keep building and developing this restaurant group and take it from two restaurants to dozens across Cornwall, creating a chain strong enough to compete regionally and then nationally.
We have now recruited a Group General Manager in the form of veteran Two Rosette Head Chef Stephen Marsh who is already helping us to develop incredible local and seasonal dishes and menus in a way that can be delivered through a multi-site operation.
We are already looking for our third and fourth sites and have already been asked to consider other sites where the Town Councils want similar standards and community integration in aiding footfall and social spaces.
So far we have created over £250,000 in sales revenue in under one year, from nothing, and I want to double this in year two.
It costs between £50k and £100k to open each restaurant depending on the work needed and the cost of the lease, but roughly two-thirds of this can be financed if we have the cash-funds for legal fees, deposits and leases.
So, for £20k I can open another restaurant and create anywhere between eight and 20 jobs. And I’m opening them in under one month from completing on the lease, which means the sales revenue starts to come in really quickly and the rest of the work gets paid for by re-investing the business turnover.
I have not taken a wage yet and have no intention to start doing so for the time being. Any money recieved here will go directly into building this business and not to paying me.
Funds raised here will help us to buy and build the third and possibly fourth restaurants. Securing approximately 20 current employees and creating another 20.
My whole team and I thank you in advance for your help and support.