OFFSITE meetings and a love of pizzas has sparked the takeover of a Winchester restaurant by a chain with a presence in the city.

Three Joes, which opened in 2018 in Great Minster Street, has acquired The Stable in The Square for an undisclosed sum, writes Sophie Day.

Three Joes, the sourdough pizza and craft beer chain, bought the 14 Stable restaurants from London brewers Fuller’s, after talks about a partnership.

Tim Hall, chief executive and co-founder of Three Joes, said that what started off as discussions about how the two businesses could collaborate resulted in the brewery chain saying “make us an offer”.

“We are big fans [of The Stable] because of the Three Joes location in Winchester we quite often used to go down to The Stable when we wanted to have an offsite chat and ended up liking the food.

“We were always saying imagine if we could put our pizzas in the Bristol or Bath site, we felt our pizzas were at a different level.”

The company has said that once Government restrictions are loosened on restaurants all of its locations will reopen, with hopes that this will take place on July 5, but that does not mean drastic changes will take place within The Stable site.

“Not too much will change as soon as we are able to reopen they [The Stable sites] will reopen as they are, there will be no significant changes in the future,” Tim added.

“It is very unusual that it [The Stable] is 50 yards from Three Joes, but other than the ownership we wouldn’t look at any changes. There no worries for the good people of Winchester.”

The acquisition sees the company expand its geographical spread into the south west, Wales and the Midlands, as it currently only boasts two other restaurants in Fareham and Sheffield.

Tim added: “The Stable is five times our size and whilst we are all operating in uncertain times we are confident the business has a strong future ahead.

“With sites located in harbours, beach fronts and market squares in the South West and on the coast, the opportunity to add these beautiful sites to our estate was too good to be true. We believe these are the ideal locations to expand Three Joes into whilst the country recovers from Covid and people choose to take holidays at home in the UK.”

Tim founded Three Joes in 2017 alongside Peter Bruton, ex-founder of Byron Hamburgers, and Emma Blackmore, ex-Pizza Express and Pret menu development and procurement specialist.

Chris Bickle, director of Licensed Leisure at Savills acted for Fuller, Smith & Turner on the disposal.