Member Article

Caters team with Terry Laybourne for £12.5 million Sage Gateshead food deal

Sage Gateshead has appointed Midlands-based catering group Lindley Heritage to develop its food and hospitality services as part of a £12.5 million deal involving renowned North East restaurateur, Terry Laybourne MBE.

The deal will see chef and restaurateur Laybourne work with Lindley to develop Sage’s food and drink offering across its café and restaurant, concourse and mezzanine bars.

Lindley are established caterers in the football stadium market, providing services to the likes of Tottenham Hotspur FC as well as Warner Bros studios tour in Watford.

The firm has assumed full responsibility for catering services and has already re-styled the café/restaurant, introducing new menus which focus on fresh, seasonal local produce and feature Terry Laybourne signature dishes.

Bradley Carr, general manager of catering at Sage Gateshead and a Lindley Group employee said: “This is a really exciting move for us. To be working in partnership with someone of Terry Laybourne’s pedigree is fantastic and we want to build another food and drink destination of the calibre that Terry runs just over the river, with his restaurants in Newcastle.”

As consultant chef Terry - whose 21 Hospitality Group operates a collection of some of the North East’s most popular award-winning restaurants, including the highly renowned Café 21, The Broad Chare and Caffé Vivo in Newcastle - is closely involved in creating Sage Gateshead menus and in training and development of the onsite chefs who are honing their skills in the 21 Hospitality Group’s restaurant kitchens.

Speaking at the launch of the partnership this week, Terry told Bdaily: “Partnership arrangements are not something I tend to do, but it’s hard not to be captivated by what they are doing here at Sage - the venue is so impressive and the ethos of Lindley Group is really in tune with my own - so I’ve every confidence this will be a great venture.”

Terry added that he wants to continue 21 Hospitality Group’s commitment to using local suppliers, in the setup at Sage and is also keen to see the project develop opportunities for young catering talent.

Jonathan Davies, The Lindley Group’s sales and marketing director, added: “This contract has all of the ingredients of a perfect partnership – a unique landmark building in a vibrant city offering a wide range of multi-function rooms and state-of-the art technical facilities which provide the ideal setting for any event from concerts to conferences, exhibitions and weddings. There is also the skill and expertise of an extremely talented, locally-renowned chef; and an independent national catering company which understands how to drive sales and increase customer satisfaction.

“Our aim is to make Sage Gateshead a ‘must visit’ venue renowned for serving high quality food. We want the food in the Café/Restaurant to appeal not only to the thousands of visitors attending the concerts, music festivals and workshops, but also to diners who simply want to enjoy a superb meal in a fantastic setting, and to provide an added attraction for organisers of conferences, events and private parties.”

As part of the contract Lindley will also operate full recycling facilities for the kitchens; offer free used coffee grounds for customers’ gardens; audit energy and waste use to ensure sustainable working.

Emily Taylor, head of Marketing and Communications at Sage Gateshead added: “The collaboration is a big deal – as well as providing catering and hospitality for all public events and private functions taking place at Sage Gateshead, The Lindley Group, with Terry’s support, will also work closely with our in-house events management team to further develop conference and banqueting opportunities.

“We now have a new bar on our Concourse, which has been an instant hit, and the cafe has been rejuvenated with Lindley’s new menus, approach to service and layout.

“What many people don’t realise is that Sage Gateshead is a charity and therefore this commercial element to our offering is absolutely critical to our sustainability.

“We rely a lot on outside funding including grants and donations to help us deliver our hugely successful performance and learning and participation programmes, 70% of which take place outside of this building and across the region – in schools, nurseries, community centres, care homes to name just a few. However we do not take this income for granted and do everything we can to remain as commercially viable as possible.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .