Bar Room Bar at Mailbox up for sale as chain collapses
As well as the bar in the Mailbox, the firm also had an outlet in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The firm in its present incarnation was started in summer 2007 by Tony and Ross Sanders, backed by a group of employees from a company that used to own Bar Room Bar, and significant funding from Birmingham’s financial sector. The new team bought the sites, as well as the Bar Room Bar name, from the Orchid Pub Group for a total of £20 million.
They had also amassed a £4 million war chest they said would be used to undertake an “aggressive five-year acquisition campaign”, with the idea being to expand the portfolio to 40 or more sites by 2012. Bar Room Bar had been bought by Orchid from the Spirit Group a year earlier as part of a £571 million deal. Ross Sanders had previously worked for the Spirit Group and said he wanted to return the brand to its former glory.
His father Tony was one of the founders of the Jam House in St Paul’s Square, and had previously sold management firm Mercury Leisure to Pubmaster for £38 million in 1998.
Other people involved in the bid who had previously been at the Spirit Group were area manager Nick Sweeney and financial director Jason Ross.
The deal to buy Bar Room Bar was backed by the corporate department at Allied Irish Bank (GB), which was also the main funder for the deal. At the time they described it as a “long and delicate deal”, but said they were expecting the firm to perform well, and were pleased to see local businessmen involved in the purchase.
