Marmalade Pub Company announces first site in Soho

The Marmalade Pub Company has announced it will open its first venue, the Compton Cross in London's Soho this summer.

The new business is a partnership between Ei Group and the Marylebone Leisure Group, which already operates six pubs in London including the Marylebone on Marylebone High Street and the Princess of Wales in Primrose Hill.

It will be the first in a series of pubs opened by Marmalade, with a second site - the Portobello Star - set to this summer on London's Portobello Road, Notting Hill, followed by the the Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge

Compton Cross, currently known as Molly Moggs, will close for refurbishment work before re-opening as a bar that will serve home-infused spirits and cocktails alongside a range of craft beers.

Molly Moggs is an LGBT+ venue and so the Marmalade Pub Company has enlisted the help of London's Night Czar, Amy Lamé, to ensure that the Compton Cross continues to be a fully inclusive and welcoming venue for all members of the local community and visitors to the area.

Lamé commented: "The Marmalade Pub Company has become the first signatory of the new LGBT+ Venues Charter which I have developed alongside The Mayor to help safeguard venues for the LGBT+ community. We are delighted that The Compton Cross will continue to be an LGBT+ venue."

Nathan Wall, operations director for Ei Managed Investments, said: "We are delighted to have found some fantastic venues for the Marmalade Pub Company set to open this year, the first of which being The Compton Cross. We're excited to see them all open and help enrich the local communities they'll serve.

"Our Soho site is the oldest pub in the area having opened in 1731. During that time it's seen many different guises and has been known as Molly Moggs since 1996. We'd like to thank experienced publican Jimmy McGrath and his team for temporarily running the venue as the much-loved Molly Moggs while we prepare for refurbishment works that will take the pub in a new direction, but one that will continue to embrace all the local diversity and culture of Soho."

Founded in 2011 by Lawrence Santi and Ben Avigdori, the Marylebone Leisure Group is multi-site bar group which focuses on high-quality infused spirits and liqueurs which are hand made in the company's in-house laboratories. It currently operates a number of pubs, bars and restaurants in London and the South East.

Ei Group plc, formerly known as Enterprise Inns, has over 4,500 pubs across England and Wales.

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