GRAND Central restaurant will be closing for a £300,000 refurbishment and rebranding.

Bosses at the American-style restaurant announced ambitious plans for the site with increased entertainment as part of the experience.

TLC Inns, the parent company behind Grand Central, Miles Gray Road, Basildon is revamping the site to create a burger and steak restaurant with live entertainment and games such as table tennis.

The firm says restaurants with a more competitive social scene are on the up and it wants to join the trend, but with a focus on quality food.

Works are already well underway with a short closure planned for most of next week as part of a staged refurbishment.

The inside of the new restaurant will be decorated with grass and cow hide on the walls.

Director Steve Haslam said: “We’ve been in Basildon for eight years and it’s been great.

“The last 12 to 18 months haven’t been so great with the falter of the casual dining market nationally.

“As a company we’ve got to the point where we have been trialling other concepts based on a more social environment including games such as golf, as these sort of restaurants are doing well.

“We’ve decided to rebrand and refurbish our restaurant and are going with a more competitive socialising theme.

“We will have games including pool and table tennis and a new restaurant under the name of Burger Brats.

“We will be spending £80,000 on a new pop-up restaurant and then will be carry out a bigger refurbishment in January.

“We are now getting ready for Christmas and taking bookings.”

He said the new restaurant will have a range of entertainment including mini tournament table tennis, pool and darts. There will also be steak nights, games nights, quizzes plus live lounge evenings. Mr Haslam said: “We want to buck the trend with quality food such as 100 per cent steak trim burgers and rare Scottish steaks. We want to get people back together and going out.”