Owners
Tim Bacon & Jeremy Roberts
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Career : Living Ventures was born in 1999 from the success of previous businesses in the catering industry. Tim and Jeremy had been highly successful in developing bars and restaurants in partnership with regional and national brewers and selling their share in the business once established. Australian entrepreneur and former actor Tim Bacon set up his first bar & restaurant Consultancy Company, Bar Biz, in 1989, two years after first serving his apprenticeship with TGI Friday's. This led to the first owned establishment - JW Johnson's, in Manchester in 1993. Two years later, JW's merged with The Celebrated Group PLC and Tim became Restaurant Operations Director before leaving in 1996 Jeremy Roberts started his career washing dishes in his Dad's hotel. Hotels were in his blood so after school he went to Uni at Guildford. Armed with his degree in Hotel Management and having spent a year learning how to speak Belgian French in Brussels he worked at the Cumberland Hotel Kitchens for 6 months. He then became Food and Beverage Manager at the Cavendish Hotel in London and then moved up to Manchester as Hotel Manager of one of the airport Hotels. He then moved away from the corporate world of large hotel companies to the less corporate world of small hotel companies. He built and opened a new hotel in Lancashire and successfully ran a large nightclub as well as two hotels. Via Vita, the first concept to be launched by Tim and Jeremy's previous company - Life Restaurants grew to five sites before their partners Marston Thompson & Evershed bought Life's half of the business in 1998. The partnership then went on to develop Life Café, Two sites in Liverpool and Manchester were developed before the fledgling brand was sold to hotel and restaurant operator Whitbread in1999. In 1999 The Living Room was born. In December 2005, the Sunday Times Top 100 named Living Ventures the fastest-growing company in hospitality In March 2005 on the back of this phenomenal growth the group added the under performing Est Est Est chain of restaurants in a deal with it's major shareholder The Restaurant Group which saw the listed company take a 40% stake in the company by buying out the existing private equity partner Bowmark Capital. In 2006 turnover peaked at more than £51m. This success and in particular that of The Living Room did not go unnoticed by fellow operators. In June 2007 Ultimate leisure paid £28 million to acquire the TLR estate. Tim and Jeremy having successfuly refinanced the business are now concentrating on a rebranding exercise of the remaining 15 strong estate with two new brands Blackhouse Grills and Gusto – Restaurant and Bar. There are currently 8 Est Est Est outlets and 2 Gusto with more to follow. There are also 5 Blackhouse Seafood & Steak Grills.
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Jeremy Roberts & Tim Bacon
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