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Restaurant group says worst is over

Liz Vaughan-Adams
Tuesday 01 July 2003 00:00 BST
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Hartford Group, owner of the Jamies Bars chain and restaurants including the fashionable Pharmacy in London's Notting Hill, yesterday pointed to a recovery in the industry, saying it thought it had now seen the worst.

Since many of its Jamies Bars are based in London's financial district, it thought the improved trading it was seeing also pointed to an upturn in market conditions in the City.

"It probably stopped getting worse about two and a half months ago and we've seen signs in the last three to four weeks that things are getting better," said James Kowszun, the chief executive of Hartford.

Mr Kowszun said he thought trading at Hartford was up about 5-10 per cent across the board. "In general, things are getting a little bit less grumpy," he said, adding: "It's been a horrible six to 12 months' trading for the whole industry ... I'm just really pleased that it looks like we're coming out of it."

Hartford, which issued a profit warning earlier this year after customers avoided its sites - particularly after a raft of redundancies in London's financial district - yesterday announced a pre-tax loss of £398,000 in the 28 weeks to 12 April.

But sales rose 135 per cent over that period to £7.5m thanks to last year's acquisition of Jamies Bars. Mr Kowszun said if Jamies Bars' results were ignored, sales were slightly lower than last year.

Trading at the high profile Pharmacy restaurant, once a favoured haunt for celebrities, had been "relatively painful", he admitted, although he said it had since "stabilised".

Nevertheless, he said he would look at offers for the fashionable site which was designed by Damien Hirst who now has a small shareholding in Hartford.

"If somebody comes and offers us a decent price [for Pharmacy] then, as a PLC, I have no option but to take it seriously and if the offer was right we'd take it. But I'm not out there publicly pushing [the sale of the restaurant]."

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