Brenhan Magee to open pop-up pub Fever Pitch for the World Cup
Serial pub and bar entrepreneur Brenhan Magee has spent £200,000 creating a pop-up bar for the World Cup on the former site of the King's Head pub in Fulham.
Magee, who recently sold his share in the Club Bar & Dining in London's Warwick St to concentrate on his own venture, plans to run the bar for the duration of the football tournament, which starts on 11 June.
The move comes less than a month after Magee took on a 20-year lease for the property with major pubco Enterprise Inns under a new, more flexible lease agreement.
He indicated that he planned to open up the ground floor of the 15,000sq ft pub, which was previously an antipodean sports bar, and rename it Fever Pitch for the duration of the World Cup. It will boast 11 big screens to allow customers to watch the football from wherever they are. Meanwhile, drinkers will be able to enjoy hot dogs, pies and toasties, similar to the kind that they would be able to buy at a football stadium.
"I have got the space and I can do whatever I like with it so I thought during the World Cup we'll make it fun and we'll make it a pop-up bar. On 13 July, after the final, we will wrap it all up and throw it away. It will no longer be Fever Pitch," Magee said.
Magee's long-term plans for the venue are to open up the first and second floors and turn it into a pub/restaurant, likely to be called the Broadway Bar & Grill. The refurbishment of the entire venue is likely to end up costing around £1m.
And he spoke positively of Enterprise's lease agreement, although details are still being finalised: "Enterprise are being extremely accommodating and understanding," he said. "They should be patted on the back for not acting like dinosaurs. They have been able to understand our needs and the wants in moving things forward."
Earlier this year Enterprise announced that it would start to offer leases of 10 to 20 years, linked to the Retail Prices Index (RPI) of inflation, and with no rent reviews, by July this year. All new agreements will also offer a free-of-tie guest ale option for locally-sourced cask ales.
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By Neil Gerrard
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