Gail's property chief Michelle Pollard-Smith joins Loungers
After three years running site acquisition for Gail's fast-expanding bakery estate, Michelle Pollard-Smith moves to lead property growth at Lounge and Cosy Club owner Loungers.
Michelle Pollard-Smith has left Gail's Bakery's property team to become head of development at Loungers, the group behind Lounge and Cosy Club.
Pollard-Smith spent three years as Gail's head of property, running site acquisition, lease negotiations and portfolio management at a bakery chain reportedly opening 30 sites a year, a pipeline that has made Gail's one of the most closely watched tenants on UK high streets. She joined in 2015 as a project manager and stayed a decade, after ten years with the Aubaine restaurant group.
She announced the move on LinkedIn: “I am joining Loungers as head of development in the property team!” She is bringing, she said, her “passion for strategic expansion, project delivery and sustainable design” to the new role.
A bakery property chief becomes a pub group's growth engine, London to Essen.
The expansion machine she joins
Loungers operates 273 Lounge cafés, 36 Cosy Club bar-restaurants and four Brightside roadside sites, more than 300 venues in total across the UK.
The remit is bigger than the one she leaves. Loungers is opening its first restaurant outside the UK this month, a Southville-branded site in Essen, Germany.
She described Loungers as having “an infectious energy and a brilliant brand footprint,” and said she was looking forward to its next phase of growth.
Fortress money behind the roll-out
The expansion runs on private equity, much as Common Table Group's purchase of 57 former Whitbread restaurants did earlier this year. US investment firm Fortress bought Loungers in a £354m deal in February 2025, and the site count has kept climbing since.
Gail's has built one of London's fastest-growing bakery estates, competing for sites in the same crowded market that forced a rescue deal at Bread Ahead's stall at Borough Market. Pollard-Smith's successor at the bakery chain has not been named.
Neither company has said how many sites Pollard-Smith is expected to add at Loungers, or whether Germany will be followed by other markets. The appointment comes as both chains compete for a shrinking supply of prime units in Britain's city centres.
