New openings: Corney & Barrow launches Cabin

25 July, 2012

Corney & Barrow will launch its new C&B Cabin concept at London’s Waterloo station next Monday. There's also opening news from Obika, Korean chain Bibigio and France-based Francesca.

The concept has been designed to take Corney & Barrow beyond its City heartlands and into travel hubs, and its ambitious scale will up the game for station bars and restaurants. Themed around the Orient Express, C&B Cabin will have luxurious carriage-style seating in the bar area, and a British tapas-style restaurant menu plus take-out hampers prepared to order. Other features will include self-service wine machines that can be operated via an Oyster card-style system. Corney & Barrow hopes to add more Cabins in spaces between 1,000 and 2,500 square feet.

C&B Cabin is part of a new retail development at Waterloo, which has also seen a new opening for YO! Sushi, with Carluccio’s and Benugo to follow soon. Once all operators are open, the £25m development will cover around 55,000 square feet and host 38 units.

No Saints, the nightclub company run by former Luminar chief executive Steve Thomas, launched its new Wonderworld concept at the former Oceania nightclub in Milton Keynes on Wednesday (25 July). It incorporates two clubs called Yesterday and Tomorrow. No Saints will meanwhile convert a former bingo hall in Cambridge into its Jam House format before the end of the year.

Italian mozzarella bar concept Obika has opened on Draycott Avenue in South Kensington. It joins the company’s first UK branch in Canary Wharf.

France-based Italian restaurant chain Francesca has launched into the UK with a site on Baker Street. The company’s UK franchise holder hopes to open at least one more location in London before the end of the year.

Korean chain Bibigo is to open in London in September. The company says it has secured a site on Great Marlborough Street in Soho and will open two or three more sites a year.

Ping, a new ping pong themed bar, will launch on Earls Court Road in August. Ping, billed as a kitchen, bar and ping pong rooms, will be a new take on the pool bar format. It will have two bars, one restaurant and three ping pong tables for customers.

Prezzo is to open a 4,300 square feet restaurant in Manchester’s Printworks retail and leisure centre.