M Restaurants hits its £1.35m crowdfunding target in 60 hours October 5, 2016 City favourite M Restaurants has raised £1.4m on crowdfunding platform Seedrs, beating its £1.35m target within 60 hours of launching its campaign. The award-winning group, which currently has restaurants M Threadneedle and M Victoria, hit its target last night and is now overfunding to £1.5m, raising the money to aid expansion. It plans to build M Social, a [...]
Sadiq Khan’s plan for one new East London road crossing just isn’t enough October 4, 2016 After years of lobbying for more fixed river crossings east of Tower Bridge, Sadiq Khan’s announcement yesterday that the Silvertown tunnel, along with a DLR extension from Gallions Reach towards Thamesmead and a cycle bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, will get the go-ahead is hugely welcome news for London. But he must not stop [...]
Facebook and trend for fewer but bigger nights out lift profits at Revolution Bars Group October 4, 2016 A large Facebook following and people opting for fewer but bigger nights out have revolutionised profits at Revolution Bars Group over the last year. The figures Revenue at the premium bar firm, which operates the Revolution and Revolucion de Cuba brands, was up 6.9 per cent to £119.5m in the year ended 30 June. Like-for-like [...]
Massive business rate hikes will be a disaster for growth and investment in London September 29, 2016 Hundreds of thousands of companies across the UK are nervously awaiting today’s release of new property valuation data that will determine how much they will have to pay in business rates. As if the prospect of having their rateable values reassessed after a seven-year gap wasn’t scary enough, government announcements this week create a toxic [...]
Focus On Camberwell: The area’s cool neighbours and artistic connections make up for the lack of Tube September 29, 2016 Gentrification is taken to be a fairly modern concept; the word conjures up images of property developers covertly following artists home to scout out the area for substantial profit. In fact, the Victorians have been at it ever since the first railways began connecting previously far-flung districts to the capital and Camberwell was one of [...]
Here’s how many people are using UberEats in London (and it’s expanding to zone 2) September 29, 2016 Uber now boasts more than half a million users of UberEats in London as it expands the food delivery service further across the capital. The service which launched in June to rival homegrown Deliveroo will now be available in parts of zone 2 beyond its initial launch area of central London. In the three months since launching, the billion-dollar startup [...]
Dubai loves an engineering challenge and the new Burj Al Arab sea terrace is up there with the biggest September 26, 2016 As engineering feats go, one that is half the weight of the Eiffel Tower and slightly larger than the size of a football pitch is pretty significant. Add the fact that the brief was to create an ultra-luxe, environmentally sensitive terrace extension to the 7-star hotel Burj Al Arab, whilst it remained open, and you [...]
Bluebird and Le Pont de la Tour owner D&D London restaurant group dishes up best ever profits September 26, 2016 Premium restaurant operator D&D London served up tasty growth last year, despite a troubling second half, and has committed to investing in the UK after the vote for Brexit. The figures Chief executive Des Gunewardena has said the second half of the year "was certainly not a bed of roses", though full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation [...]
The founders of Syft explain how they’re saving clients 55 per cent – and why there’s an upper limit to Lionel Richie September 26, 2016 Two Christmases ago, Jack Beaman experienced something of an intervention. “I’d been out of work for six months, and a group of friends sat me down and asked me what I was actually going to do with my life.” Fortunately, he’d spent that time cooking up a business idea. “As a student, like a lot [...]
Ristorante Frescobaldi’s Florentine wine success set to go global September 26, 2016 There are many foodies who would argue London has the most competitive restaurant scene in the world. The number of food-led sites in the capital has increased by almost a fifth over the last five years alone, according to figures from Market Growth Monitor, leaving new restaurants and pop-up organisers vying for competition more than [...]