New restaurants lift for city as reopening looms

Belfast is poised to welcome two new restaurants next month.

Yo Burger, which launched in Bangor last year, is due to open the doors on a Lisburn Road venue where it hopes to employ 30 people.

And in Belfast city centre, Catch 2020 Ltd has applied for a licence for a restaurant to sit beside the nine-floor Merchant Square building, which will be fully occupied by PwC.

Directors, Joanne Mulligan, John Trainor and Brendan Hurl, also partly behind Belfast’s Balmoral Hotel, which is currently undergoing a £2.5m extension project.

Both restaurants are awaiting the outcome of a licence application.

Yo Burger operations director Zara Beggs told the Belfast Telegraph: “We opened in Bangor last year, and the plan was to always open some sort of food house in the Hophouse, which was a wet bar. We decided the street food route was the one to take, so the concept of Yo Burger was born.

“The Lisburn Road is a very vibrant part of the city. There are so many local takeaways and restaurants in what is a very heavily populated area. Once the students come back, we expect it to be do very well”

Yo Burger will occupy part of the former M&S unit on the Lisburn Road.

Northern Ireland’s hospitality sector is set to reopen for outdoor trading on April 30, with the return of indoor trading given an indicative date of May 24.