A Starbucks franchise business has opened a new drive-thru and café in Glasgow, adding to its growing portfolio of locations throughout Scotland.
Glasgow-based OCO Westend, one of Starbucks’ longest licensed partners in the UK, opened its new store in Polmadie last month, creating 20 new jobs for the area, following support from HSBC UK.
The new site follows openings in Inverness, Rutherglen, Paisley and Hillington since August 2020, with these stores generating a total of 105 new jobs.
The support secured from HSBC UK has helped with the firm’s expansion by covering the construction and fit-out costs for the new stores. OCO Westend also plans to open two further stores later this year, with more planned for 2022 and beyond.
READ MORE: Glasgow's Cail Bruich has second Michelin star in its sight as it prepares to reopen
The new Starbucks in Polmadie forms part of an exciting new services destination for the area at the M74 Junction, which includes storage and business units, a petrol station, and new electric vehicle supercharging station from European motoring venture, Ionity.
JJ O’Hara, managing director, OCO Westend said: “We’re thrilled to be able to open our new Polmadie drive-thru location, hot on the heels of our new stores in Inverness and Rutherglen.
“HSBC UK has supported us for the past eight years since we opened our first store on Dumfries High Street in 2013. Since then, the bank’s franchise expertise and guidance has enabled us to build a sustainable and successful business across Scotland.”
Kevin McKenna, relationship manager for HSBC UK in Scotland, said: “OCO Westend has continued to steadily add to its impressive portfolio in recent years and we’re thrilled to support its expansion. With the on-the-go café market continuing to flourish, OCO Westend has spotted a gap in the market across Scotland and moved quickly to fill it.”
Recent growth means OCO Westend now employs 273 people across thirteen stores in Scotland.
The funding was allocated from HSBC UK’s national SME Fund, part of its commitment to help British businesses innovate and grow as the country looks to rebound from the Covid-19 health crisis. The new £15 billion SME Fund has been announced by HSBC UK, with £650 million committed to supporting SMEs in Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here