The Wig & Pen bar and restaurant is set to expand backwards from its current Campo Lane location, to incorporate Georgian buildings in Paradise Square.

Work is expected to take around 12 weeks, opening up the bar across the entire first floor and creating a 50-cover dining room below it. The exterior of the grade 2 listed building will remain unchanged, but a new entrance will be created, accessed from the cobbled square.

The new restaurant is expected to open in May. Meanwhile directors are busy finalising the details.
Barry Starmore, who oversees the bar side of the business, plans to increase the number of premium wines available by the glass. They will also be available by the carafe - a service which is expected to be popular among business customers, particularly at lunchtime.

"We're building on our success with wine and with real ale - it's not going to be a cocktail bar," he says.

Food will continue along current lines, with a choice of light dishes and tapas in the bar, but a full à la carte will be added in the restaurant.

"We've shifted slightly since we first opened, but we've followed our market trend," says head chef Alex Shaw. "The aim we've always had was to keep ahead of everybody and keep everything fresh."
The new menu will be British based with Mediterranean influences. Those who want tapas, or a pint and a sandwich, will still be able to get them, but the à la carte will operate both lunchtime and evening.

"We're all really excited about the opening," says Barry. "The plans are still evolving, building on the best of what we do, but it will be a very different space and it's great to see it all happening at last."

Even the building itself still holds a few surprises - while checking out the new ground floor last week they discovered two vaulted cellars which no-one had previously been aware of.

"It was a fantastic find," says manager Andy Stephens, "they weren't even marked on the plans. One is shelved out as a wine cellar, but there's so much we could do with them. The possibilities are endless..."