Brothers’ new vision for former Townhouse venue

Intro: Budding entrepreneur, Peter Ringland (26) and his younger brother, Ben, are among the latest in a new generation of restaurant and hotel operators keen to make their mark on the hospitality scene in Belfast.

Brothers Peter and Ben Ringland are the owners and developers of Town Square, the eye-catching new licensed cafe and bar that have emerged on the ground floor of the Crescent Townhouse on Botanic Avenue, which Peter bought from its former owners last July.

Refurbishment work on the hotel element of the venue itself is due to get underway in January, but phase one of the project – the new Town Square licensed cafe – was opened in November. A laid-back, café-style eatery with capacity for 65 diners at a time, it’s developed a particular reputation as a coffee house. Project leader in the café, Nathan Reid took first place at this year’s NI AeroPress Championships in June and his colleague, head barista, Ben Hamilton was placed second.

“When we opened the place, it was aimed mainly at 20 to 40-year-olds, but that has grown and now we appeal to many in the 40 to 65-year age group who come in from south Belfast for a glass of wine in the evenings,” Peter told LCN recently. “Town Square has turned very much into a casual evening venue, but our primary audience is still in the 20 to 40-year-old bracket.”

Social media is currently the main driver for business in both the café and the bar, both of which are very popular

The early success of the café allowed Peter and his brother to finance phase two of the Town Square development – the refurbishment of the former Metro Bar.

“The idea was to totally change the look of the place,” says Peter. “We took a lot of our ideas from venues that we saw in Shoreditch in London and we brought them back to Terry Design in Portadown, who put this together for us and we’re delighted with it.”

The new venue is a fusion between some of its more traditional elements – such as the heavy wooden bar – which have been retained, and a series of new additions which were added during the refurb to give the bar a comfortable and contemporary new look.

“The whole point is that we want the place to be very modern as a contrast to the old world elements that are still there,” explains Peter. “People have been loving it and we think it fits really well with the café next door, all the features in here are in keeping with the Town Square venue.”

Around £200,000 was spent on the first two phases of the project and the bar element – which is connected to the café – opened at the end of September.

Peter says that currently, social media is the preferred driver for trade in both venues and that Instagrammers in particular have embraced what’s on offer.

Peter Ringland began his hospitality career in the serviced accommodation sector in south Belfast, but says that he quickly reached the conclusion that the model was “flawed”, primarily because of the cost and time involved in servicing the apartments, which were dispersed around the south Belfast area.

After selling his serviced apartment business, he bought the Crescent Townhouse development from Wine Inns last summer and began planning the Town Square venue.

It’s a three-phase project and work on refurbishing and expanding the hotel upstairs is set to get underway in January.

“There are 17 rooms in the hotel at present, but we have also bought a building across the road and we’ll be putting eight more rooms in there,” Peter reveals.

Again, much of the inspiration for the design of this part of the project has come from experience that the pair have of venues in London, in particular, the Hoxton and Ace hotels in Shoreditch.

“Traditionally, Northern Irish people don’t like to go to hotels to eat and drink, but that is going to be the main focus of our new hotel offering,” Peter tells LCN. “The rooms will almost be like a bolt-on, it’s going to be a complete reversal of the traditional way of doing things.”

Phase three of the refurbishment will be carried-out a floor at a time, meaning that the hotel element of the business will be able to keep trading throughout.

“At the end of the process, we’ll have the restaurant, bar and the hotel and the brand is going to be ‘Eat, Drink and Sleep at Town Square’,” says Peter.

He also admits that developing the project to its current state has been personally stressful, but he pays tribute to Michael Williamson, a hospitality specialist with ASM Accountants and John McGinnis from the McGinnis Group for acting as his mentors:

“The hardest part of all this so far has been juggling the finances and dealing with unforeseen issues,” he adds. “This is an old building, so there have been lots of problems with drains and so on. The kind of things that you just wouldn’t encounter in a new fit-out.”

Peter also mentions the challenges involved in handling more than 40 staff without the benefit, as yet, of an HR department, and adds:

“Right now, we’re trying to get the social media momentum going in the run-up to Christmas so that we can generate enough cash to finance phase three of the project.

“In two or three years’ time, I would like to see us having expanded in the hotel sector, particularly on the corporate tourism side. This is an area that is growing very fast and we’re trying hard to latch onto that, that’s where we see the money. So we’re looking forward to the reduction in corporation tax, which we think will really help to bring more big IT and banking companies in and really drive that element of the business for us.”