RESTAURATEURS Alex Knight and Simon Littlejohn have bought back the Riverhouse restaurant and conference centre in Stirling for a fraction of the price they sold it for two years ago.
Knight and Littlejohn sold a 25-year lease on the site to the Leonardo & Co restaurant chain for over (pounds) 500,000 in April 2000, but Glasgow-based Leonardo's went bust last month.
Knight said yesterday they had bought back the lease from the receiver for just (pounds) 35,000 and would reopen the venue as a Mediterranean-style seafood restaurant aimed at the family market within two months.
The pair, trading as SLAK Properties, already own the Dolls House seafood restaurant and La Posada Mexican restaurant in St Andrews. They also own a small portfolio of office and retail properties in Dunblane and Perth.
''The emphasis in all the restaurants we have is on really really fresh food and giving value for money,'' Knight said. ''We particularly go for the family market.''
Knight, who is married to television presenter Carol Smillie, said SLAK Properties would invest about (pounds) 60,000 in redecorating and refurbishing the Riverhouse, which is built
on stilts like a crannog over an artificial loch.
The company had revenues
of (pounds) 2m last year, but Knight said the repurchase of the Riverhouse, which Leonardo's ran as a pizza and pasta restaurant, should push turnover up to (pounds) 3m in 2002.
Knight, 35, used to sell coffee to catering outlets around the UK before setting up in business with Littlejohn in 1993. The two met because Littlejohn, who owned a small chain of restaurants at the time, was one of his customers. Their first joint venture was a restaurant in Glasgow's Italian Centre which was eventually sold to the Bouzy Rouge chain.
Knight is currently preparing to open a restaurant on his own account in the former Bank of Scotland building in Eastwood Toll on Glasgow's Southside. He acquired the property for over (pounds) 500,000 in December.
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