A BREWERY and pub company hopes to reopen a popular city pub by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, a Scalextric model car racing room that had proved popular at the Sir John Borlase Warren is moving to another pub.
The Borlase, in Canning Circus, shut at the weekend.
But Everards, the Leicestershire company that owns it, told the Post it hoped it would reopen with a temporary manager as soon as possible.
"We're going to try and find somebody to try and open it," said head of marketing Erika Hardy said.
"By the back end of this week, we're looking to have somebody in."
In the longer term, the firm will look to find a full-time manager. There are no plans to sell it or change its function.
"We're committed to the pub," Ms Hardy said.
"We are looking to recruit somebody to take over the pub and move it forward. It is going to continue to be what it is."
She said the pub – known for real ale, good food and a beer garden once mentioned in a national newspaper as among the city's best – required an experienced manager with both food and ale skills.
The company will take its time looking for that manager.
"We're literally just at the start of the process," she said.
But, in the shorter term, the company dislikes having to shut pubs for any length of time – hence the swift search for somebody who can keep the doors open while a permanent replacement is found.
"Our preference is we'd find somebody soon and keep the business moving forward," Ms Hardy said.
It will not, however, move forward with the Racing Room. The Scalextric model car racing room that Tom Hall opened at the Borlase is now relocating to the Dragon pub, in Long Row West, where it will expand.
"There it was 80 feet of track, here's it's going to be 170," Dragon manager Aunit Sandhu said.
Previously, cars raced around a continental mountain model village – now, they'll race more locally.
"It's going to have the Old Market Square and the lions, and it's going to have a long straight replicating the M1, including the power station."
The new Racing Room opens on February 1.
