City-style plan at country club

Two Hertfordshire-based night club owners have taken over a Norfolk country club with plans for a wine bar and gym.

Daniel Alder and Al Massie of Kinda Magic Ltd have taken on the lease for Lakeside Country Club in Lyng.

They want to add a 10,000 sq/ft multi - gym and a new wine bar to the club and hope to offer city-style facilities for people in the countryside who do not want to have to pay �60 cab fares travelling home from nights out in Norwich.

The pair, who currently runs the Mother Browns night club in Hitchin and a function venue at Hitchin Town Football Club, have already employed a venue manager to take charge of functions and re-designed the restaurant menus with help from a new chef.

They will take charge of the club's current entertainment facilities, including indoor and outdoor bowls, snooker, restaurant, a lounge bar and sports bar, function rooms and a heated swimming pool.

Mr Massie said: 'We were looking for a third venue and an agent forwarded us the details of this under developed site with great facilities.'

'We will look at the customer service, what food and drink is served, and we will try and make the standard very high so the customers feel good, eat well, and drink well.

'There is the opportunity here to take what the city people get and put it in the countryside on a small scale.

'People in Dereham usually go to Norwich on a night out and this can cost them up to �60 in cab fares. We want to install a trendy new wine bar at Lakeside Country Club.

'We have also employed Lorna Dittner as our venue manager, who trained at the five star Sacher hotel in Vienna, Austria.'

Al Massie has spent 25 years in the hospitality industry working as a night club, restaurant and bar manager, whilst Daniel Alder has been in the hospitality industry for eight years, they said.