Café bar planned at former Boots store

A former chemists could move from lozengers to loungers afer plans for a café bar at the former Boots store in Congleton were filed with the council.
The premises, on Bridge Street, has been vacant since the branch closed earlier this year.
Now, a company called Loungers UK has applied for a premises licence at 14-16, Bridge Street, which includes the neighbouring property, also empty, the former Willowsbrook gift card shop.
In addition, the company has also applied to Cheshire East Council for a pavement licence for outdoor seating to serve food and drink.
Loungers operates three types of hospitality venues: Lounge café bars, Cosy Club and Brightside.
The new Congleton venue would be a Lounge, branches of which already operate in Macclesfield, Nantwich and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The Loungers UK website describes the company as a “substantial and growing” operator in the UK hospitality sector, which has more than 260 sites in England and Wales.
Its “Lounge” outlets are “neighbourhood café-bars combining elements of a restaurant, British pub and coffee shop culture”.
The website said that the Lounge estate had a “consistent look and feel but each Lounge is individually named and tailored to the site and local area, and the design of each Lounge is continually evolving, meaning no two sites are the same”.
It added: “We are passionate and proud of how each of our Lounges has become engaged and embedded within their local community. From supporting local causes to providing space for local groups, community is at the heart of everything we do at the Lounges”.
The premises licence to be considered by Cheshire East Council is for the sale of alcohol between 10am-midnight daily for consumption on and off the premises and the provision of late night refreshment between 11.30pm and 12.30pm daily.
The premises licence application was on the agenda of Congleton Town Council’s Planning Committee last Thursday. There were no objections.
Bristol-based Loungers UK was founded by three friends, Alex Reilley, Jake Bishop and Dave Reid who wanted to create a neighbourhood café-bar “that they would want to go to” and launched their first in Bristol in 2002.
The Cosy Clubs are more “formal” bars/restaurants offering reservations and table service, while Brightside is a “roadside dining concept inspired by childhood road trips of days gone by, where the highlight of the journey was a stop with the family at a roadside restaurant”.