Four-strong garden centre firm announces the development of a new 460-seater restaurant and function room at its Southampton site.
The centre in West End, Southampton is to be extended as part of a £3m investment, which will see its current 250-seater restaurant completely redesigned and an 8,000 sq ft extension built to house kitchens, storage areas, catering offices and customer toilets. Work on the new development is set to being in March.

Haskins Garden Centres Ltd chief executive Julian Winfield said: "The new layout will include the introduction of a coffee lounge... a traditional stone hearth pizza oven, the introduction of a quality daily carvery and one of the most extensive cake counters in the region."

The design of the new 460-cover restaurant will create different seating areas, including lounge areas by the glass-walled extension that will open out onto a large patio area. An extendable function room will be created and named the Swan room, after the original garden centre built on the site.

During the seven-mo nth construction period, a temporary restaurant will be created within the centre, where the current team of catering staff will continue to be employed.

The group hopes to mirror the success of a similar restaurant expansion at its Ferndown garden centre in 2008, where its annual catering turnover leapt from £1.1m to £2m.

We know that some of our West End customers have travelled to our Ferndown restaurant to see what standards they can expect next October."

£650,00 of the £3m investment will be used to refurbish the internal and external departments of the garden centre, as well as upgrade its displays and facilities.