Member Article

Leeds’ Roxy Lane bar entrepreneurs celebrate 10 years hitting £6.3 million turnover

Leeds-based Jones Bar Group is celebrating its 10 year anniversary having hit £6.3 million turnover.

Jones Bar Group has commissioned a celebration ale to be sold at its very first venture, Bar 166 & Bistro, Town Street, Horsforth, which brothers, Matthew and Ben Jones, took over on December 4 2004 and launched their first business.

They now operate nine outlets at seven Leeds venues, employ more than 100 full and part-time staff, serve about 280,000 customers a year and have this year achieved a £6.3 million turnover.

Other establishments in the Jones Bar Group include Roxy Lanes, Roxy Ball Room, Brooklyn Bar, Hirst’s Yard, 51% Bourbon, LAB, all in Leeds city centre.

Matthew and Ben, now managing director and financial director of Jones Bar Group, were aged 24 and 19 when they launched the initial business.

Matthew worked front of house and lived in a student flat above and Ben helped out in the kitchen when they jumped at an opportunity to acquire the former Stuarts Wine Bar and turn it into Bar 166 & Bistro, with advice from their father, Trevor, a co-founder of Leeds-based national wealth management company, Pearson Jones Plc.

Bar 166 & Bistro, which had ten staff, flourished and their first year’s trading generated a £780k turnover.

Further acquisitions and ventures came and went as the brothers grew their business, launching Jones Bar Group in 2009.

Matthew Jones, says: “We’ve had some knocks and failures in the last ten years but we have built the business to its current success through sheer determination, creating bars and bistros which we passionately believe in and which are increasingly popular.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .