THE award-winning Cricket Inn at Totley is set to acquire a sister operation at Troway, near Dronfield.
Owners BrewKitchen say that this is only the first in a series of expansions planned for this year.
The latest addition to the company's portfolio should be the Black-a-Moor pub.
BrewKitchen – owned by restaurateurs Simon Webster, Richard and V
ictoria Smith, and Jim Harrison of Thornbridge Hall – is bidding to buy the 1930s mock-Tudor pub, which has stood empty for the last four months and was on the market at £28,000 a year.
If all goes according to plan, they will take over the lease next week and work will begin immediately on a refit.
The new gastro-pub should open in June, rebranded as the Inn at Troway.
It is understood that the menu will champion local produce, like the Cricket Inn, which opened as the first BrewKitchen pub a year ago. But it will also focus on regional dishes from across Britain.
A bid to take over the Bull's Head at Ranmoor was foiled at the last minute, when BrewKitchen lost out to the UK's largest pub chain Enterprise Inns.
"It's a shame because, as independent operators, we could have come up with a quality operation much more appropriate on that site," said director Simon Webster.
The company is hoping to acquire two more gastro-pubs in the area over the next 12 months and London is also on the radar.
The full article contains 250 words and appears in Sheffield Telegraph newspaper.
