Caravan to make Manchester debut
The restaurant group is venturing outside of London to take up 6,500 sq ft at Manchester Goods Yard in the St John’s district, on a 20-year lease.
Caravan represented itself in the deal, which brings the operator to Manchester this summer. Manchester Goods Yard is owned by Aviva Investors.
The St John’s premises will be the firm’s first restaurant outside of the capital and will operate as an all-day, 200-cover space close to Aviva Studios and Fenix.
According to Caravan this will house two all-day dining rooms, a bar, a private dining room featuring a turntable and private sound system, two outside terraces, a takeout coffee brew bar and dedicated coffee roastery.
Co-founders Chris Ammermann, Laura Harper-Hinton and Miles Kirby, all native New Zealanders, brought what is described as their Antipodean speciality coffee culture and all day dining to London in 2009.
Laura Harper-Hinton, co-founder and chief executive of Caravan said: “We are so excited to be taking Caravan on the road to Manchester, but more importantly, we are really looking forward to spending more time in this incredible city.
“We’ve chosen a unique location which sits right next to the new Aviva Studios, behind the historic Granada Studios and right in the heart of a growing new district at St John’s.”
She added: “We hope to attract a real cross section of the city to our beautiful new restaurant and roastery.”
Caravan runs a coffee programme with a roasting and online supply business focused heavily on sustainable, responsible sourcing and long term relationship building with farmers in coffee growing regions all over the world.
In addition to the restaurant, the coffee team will establish their second roastery in Manchester with a view to providing beans and specialist training to coffee shops and restaurants across the North of England.
The new site will be open seven days a week from 8am on weekdays and 9am at weekends.
Mike Ingall of developer Allied London, responsible for advancing the St John’s neighbourhood as a whole, said: “Bringing Caravan to our unique mix at St John’s was an obvious move for us bearing in mind what we are creating, and Caravan will be an operation I am sure Manchester will love – a place where people can come in the morning and stay all day and night.”
