Shares up for grabs in popular York restaurant (From York Press)

Shares up for grabs in popular York restaurant

11:04am Tuesday 31st January 2012 in Business news By Julie Hayes, Business editor

SHARES in a popular York restaurant are being sold to local residents.

Plunkets, which has been a thriving restaurant in High Petergate for 35 years, and before then was known as Pete Maddens, has been bought by York property company The Helmsley Group.

The company is now offering £1 million worth of shares in the building to a syndicate of York residents as a long-term investment.

Plunkets, owned by Sharon Brown, will continue to run as normal, with the Helmsley Group as its new landlord.

Plunkets has not only been frequented by generations of York residents, but was also visited by the original Rolling Stones, who signed the wall of its upstairs cocktail bar in lipstick in 1968, when it was a student café bar. The wall is protected in the terms of the lease and the lipstick signatures are on show for visitors to see.

The medieval timber-framed building dates back to 1640, and has been a commercial premises for at least 100 years, being run in the 1920s and 1930s as a café.

Sharon said it also has personal history for York residents. She said: “We have local regulars who come in two to three times a week and tourists come as well because it’s such a nice building. We get people who have come as little children and are still coming back 20 to 30 years later.”

Sharon is one of the restaurant’s loyal followers too, having worked there for 25 years, starting as a potwasher and climbing the ranks before buying the business five years ago when its previous owners retired. Five members of her family also work in the business.

Ian McAndrew, director of the Helmsley Group, said the group offered shares in commercial property as an alternative to investments in buy-to-let properties or pension funds. Usually, however, they are office buildings, so he said it was a no-brainer to buy such a special Grade II-listed building in York.

Individuals in the syndicate will invest amounts from £25,000, with the total investment value of the property being £1 million.

Mr McAndrew said he hoped all the shares would be bought by York people, and they may offer a small proportion of smaller shares of less than £25,000.