Loungers Plc Regulatory News (LGRS)

13 September 2023

Loungers plc

("Loungers" or the "Group")

200th Lounge opens

Expecting to create well in excess of 1,000 new jobs in the current year

Loungers, a leading operator of all day café/bar/restaurants across the UK under the Lounge, Cosy Club and Brightside brands, is delighted to announce that it has opened its 200th Lounge - Verdetto Lounge in Buckingham. The landmark site, like all Lounges, will aim to be a home-from-home for its customers, offering excellent all-day food and drink, with a real focus on making a positive impact on the local community.

The emphasis on community is a fundamental aspect of every Lounge. Each new Lounge opening results in an investment of nearly £1m into the local high street and the creation of up to 30 new jobs on average. Once open, the Lounge team work hard to make close connections in their local area, working with community groups and nurturing charity partnerships. Facilitating and organising up to 10,000 events per year held within its Lounges, from parent and baby groups and coffee mornings to quiz nights and painting classes, Loungers uses its sites as places to bring communities together in an authentic and mutually beneficial way.

Loungers recently stated its firm belief that there is scope for at least 600 Lounges across the UK, and also announced that it intends to open 34 new sites across its three brands in the current financial year alone. Today's 200th Lounge opening brings the total estate size up to 238, including 35 Cosy Clubs and 3 Brightsides.

Alex Reilley, Chairman and co-founder of Loungers, said:

"We are hugely proud of the positive impact that our sites have had on local communities right across the UK since opening the first Lounge 21 years ago. We are determined to continue playing a major role in breathing new life into high streets, as well as creating and sustaining much needed local employment. Time and time again we've seen that the opening of a Lounge has a really positive knock-on effect on the businesses around it and, of course, on the local employment market. Last year alone we created around 1,000 new jobs through new site openings and are on course to comfortably exceed that figure in the current year.

To be opening our 200th Lounge is a fantastic landmark, but there is lots more for us to go for. We firmly believe that there is scope to have at least three times that number of Lounges in the longer term, and we are more ambitious than ever before about our plans for the future."

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Notes to Editors

Loungers operates through its two established complementary brands - Lounge and Cosy Club - in the UK hospitality sector. A Lounge is a neighbourhood café/bar combining elements of coffee shop culture, the British pub and dining. There are 200 Lounges nationwide. Lounges are principally located in secondary suburban high streets and small town centres. The sites are characterised by informal, unique interiors with an emphasis on a warm, comfortable atmosphere, often described as a "home from home". Cosy Clubs are more formal bars/restaurants offering reservations and table service but share many similarities with the Lounges in terms of their broad, all-day offering and their focus on hospitality and culture. Cosy Clubs are typically located in city centres and large market towns. Interiors tend to be larger and more theatrical than for a Lounge, and heritage buildings or first-floor spaces are often employed to create a sense of occasion. There are 35 Cosy Clubs nationwide, with a 36th opening in October 2023.

Loungers launched its third brand, a roadside dining concept called Brightside, in November 2022. The first Brightside location opened on the A38, south of Exeter, in February 2023, the second in Saltash near Plymouth in June 2023, and the third in Honiton on the A303 in August 2023.