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HIPPODROME CASINO Return to the Hippodrome


We caught up with Simon Thomas, Chairman of Hippodrome Casino Limited, developing the Hippodrome Theatre site on the corner of Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road in London, to find out how the project is advancing


C


asino International: It’s quite a building, in a superb location – what’s the Hippodrome building’s history?


Simon Thomas: The building has always been in the centre of London’s entertainment district and it has had a number of uses over the years; it went from being an indoor ‘big top’ from when it opened in 1900, to a music hall from 1910 to the 1950s, then from 1957 to the early 1980s it became Talk of the Town with a false ceiling across the middle of the building, so it became a very large dinner/dance venue. Acts like Stevie Wonder, Cher, The Supremes to Julie Andrews, Lulu – the real stars of the era performed here. Following that Peter Stringfellow took the place on in 1983 and turned it into the UK’s first super-nightclub. That continued through the hands of various club operators to 2005 when it lost its premises licence for causing too many public order offences. The building sits right in the heart of London; we have quarter of a million people walking by on Cranbourne Street every day; unknown numbers coming down Charing Cross Road; 40million people a year using the tube station underneath us, and we’re also effectively on the crossroads between the Theatre District, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly and Chinatown. Since we last spoke we have actually extended the


development as we’ve acquired the building next- door, Cranbourne Mansions, so we have premises license extensions so that we can use that entire space. It puts us up to a gross 91,000 square feet which is getting quite useful! Importantly, the building on the side gives us some lateral floorspace. We now have three gaming areas: the basement area, which will be aimed at the transactional gambler, no great frills but good gambling: the ground floor, which is one very big floor across the space of the original theatre: then the first floor is for entertainment with a 200-seat cabaret theatre, 150- seat restaurant, lounge bar, toilets: then the top floor features a big poker room, smoking terrace, bar and a suite of private gaming and private dining rooms. It’s going to be a big casino but it will be quite different from anything else in London; besides being the biggest, we aim to provide the biggest range of games. We can bring in a lot of electronic product from across the world because we have the space for it; many places in the capital do not.


CI: How is the food and beverage side going


to work? ST: We’ve brought in an American operator on the F&B side, well, an Englishman that runs an American firm, to run that, because the Americans tend to do


22 JANUARY 2011


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