A NATIONAL pub chain is expanding one of its Glasgow pubs and with it creating 40 new jobs.
JD Wetherspoons said the £1.4 million project to expand The Sir John Moore started on Monday.
The pub will close on August 7 to allow the major works to take place – with the aim to reopen on Sunday, October 3.
The pub, which is just a short walk from Glasgow Central Station, will extend into two previous shops creating a larger customer area.
Wetherspoons area manager Stewart Dumbreck said: “The Sir John Moore is an extremely popular pub. This investment highlights our commitment to offering our customers the best possible pub.
“We are also pleased to be creating 40 new jobs.”
Last week, Wetherspoons denied its move to offload around 30 jobs was an exercise in “money raising”. It came as the company forecast an “improved outcome” in its next financial year amid improving sales and a “slightly reduced expectation for cost increases”.
The company said: "The disposals outlined above have been characterised in a small number of newspaper articles as a 'money-raising' exercise, provoked by the difficult trading circumstances for the hospitality industry in recent years. This is a misinterpretation.”
Wetherspoon said like-for-like sales for the first 10 weeks of the final quarter of its current financial year increased by 11% compared with the same period in its last full financial year before the pandemic, which ended on July 28, 2019. Sales in the year to date are up 7.4% compared with the same year.
Compared with 2022, like-for-like sales have risen by 11.5% in the fourth quarter to date and by 12.9% in the year to date.
Chairman and founder Tim Martin said: "The company expects profits in the current financial year to be in line with market expectations.
“As a result of a continued improvement in sales and a slightly reduced expectation for cost increases, for example energy costs, the company anticipates an improved outcome for the next financial year and anticipates an outcome for the first half of FY24 approximately in line with the second half of FY23.”
