Clapham House arrests slide at Tootsies

Restaurant group Clapham House claimed today it had stopped the rot at its Tootsies restaurant chain with the introduction of a new management team and menus.

Before Christmas, Clapham House, which also owns Gourmet Burger Kitchen, issued a profits warning, citing poor trading at 11 Tootsies restaurants.

The news resulted in a 40% fall in the company's share price and calls for it to concentrate its efforts on its successful Gourmet Burger Kitchen business.

However, today's full-year results to 30 March 2008 show a 52% rise in pre-tax profit to £8.9m and a 30% increase in turnover to £59.5m.

Clapham House Group executive chairman David Page, said of Tootsies: "We have a whole new management team, all new menus and have refurbished the stores.

"We had a pretty poor September and October in shopping centres but the new management have arrested that. We have turned five sites into GBK's, but we are stopping that for the moment, and we have sold off two that were not profitable."

Development director Sarah Willingham, who was a judge on the first series of Raymond Blanc's BBC2 show The Restaurant, left the company in March.

Page added that the company still planned to open 20 new outlets in its current financial year, with locations including London's Spitalfields and Westfield shopping centre.

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By Christopher Walton

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