The new owners of Newcastle city centre bar and live music hub Hoochie Coochie have revealed it will be renamed Pilgrim from January as they have recruited high profile names to help with its relaunch. International marketing consultant Michael Lavery, tech entrepreneur Mike O'Brien and software company founder Paul Dyson are among the team that took over the lease of the popular venue earlier this year. Now they have enlisted TV chef Si King to create a new daytime food offering, and Tyneside graphic artist Peter Manning - better known as Prefab 77 - to put the finishing touches to the exterior and the interior of the Pilgrim Street property.
Mr Lavery, who is also a musician and investor, said: "I’m a North East guy but a lot of my professional work in the last couple of decades has been on a national and international level. As my own business (award-winning consulting firm Brand & Reputation) was growing, I was keen to find projects for investment that would anchor me back in the region with my family and reconnect me to the North East business and cultural community. "I invested in a marketing strategy training company alongside some other angel investors and, at a meeting of the investors board, I shared my excitement about an opportunity to buy Hoochie Coochie — my favourite music venue in the city.
It's a place where my own band, Groovetrain, has played over a dozen times in the last decade and, despite performing on some big festival and venue stages across the U.