Loungers opens 200th site in Buckingham

Operator of the Lounge, Cosy Club and Brightside brands, Loungers, has opened its 200th Lounge site, Verdetto Lounge in Buckingham. 

The opening of Verdetto Lounge brings Loungers’ total estate up to 238 locations, including 35 Cosy Clubs and three Brightsides. 

The Lounge brand now graces the principal shopping areas of towns as far south as St Ives, Cornwall, and as North as Morpeth in Northumberland. 

Loungers hit its 200th opening milestone as it believes there is scope for at least 600 Lounges across the UK, having announced its intention to open 34 new sites across all three brands in the current financial year alone. 

According to the group, each Lounge location contributes almost £1m in investment to the local high street it serves and creates up to 30 new jobs, as community is “an integral part of every new site that the company opens”.

In addition, the group also aspires to host 10,000 community events every year, as part of its ongoing commitment to “bringing people together”. 

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.” 

He added: “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.”