Siblings say goodbye to a hectic life in city
Oct 29 2007 by Graeme King, The Journal
THE family behind some of Newcastle’s most fashionable bars and restaurants is to sell the last of its city centre businesses and look further afield.
The De Giorgi siblings behind the Gusto Group have recently sold their Popolo and Paradiso outlets and are now also looking to offload bar and restaurant complex Secco too – but will keep the Pilgrim Street building in which all three stand.
And the trio, who have just hired builders MGM to start work on their new £1m cafe and restaurant project in the Ouseburn valley, said yesterday that they are on the look out for another new project.
Cristina De Giorgi says she and her brothers had enjoyed the extra time and freedom they have had since granting long term leases on Popolo and Paradiso, and will pursue this strategy further – though the sale of Secco will not happen straight away.
She said: “We can see the benefits of not spreading ourselves too thinly. Pilgrim Street is now fully developed – we are currently the landlords in just over half the building, and in the other half we are tenant landlords. We plan to develop Secco further, then make a disposal.”
Mrs De Giorgi said the decision to sell the city centre businesses had come from a desire for a different lifestyle. She added: “The three of us all have children, and this time last year in half term week we had to pay for people to look after them, but now we take it in turns while the others work.
“We don’t have anyone above us telling us what to do so we can take a much more relaxed approach, but we think we have still got a couple of other projects in us.
“We are looking for another property at the moment. We are not discounting a move north, south east or west – because growth is all around the city.
“It will either be a major renovation project or a piece of land that we buy. What we do with it depends on the space – we can do bars, restaurants, cafe/bars. It could be anything.”
The Ouseburn site – on Lime Street close to the Seven Stories Centre for Children’s Books, has taken a long time to come to fruition.
Issues with finding new homes for existing land users and a need to finalise access to the site delayed the development.
Mrs De Giorgi said: “It will take five to six months – there’s a lot of glass and a lot of terraced areas involved in the building. We want to maximise the light and maximise the outdoor space.
“The site is a triangle, and we believed we had the whole triangle, but we didn’t. We needed the extra piece of land for access.
“But now, since the council could not find records of ownership, they have said they will adopt it as council land, and give us access over it.
“It been quite complicated to get the project started. In the period we’ve been working on it, we’ve seen our surveyor appointed, become pregnant, go on maternity leave, have her baby, and now return from maternity leave. But we are finally now at the point where we are confident of being on site in January.”
