Once completed, in March 2015, the extended centre will include a food hall featuring an award winning butcher, a wider range of gifts and a covered outside plant sales area to weatherproof the shopping experience.

The restaurant extension will have multiple uses as it will be used for talks and demonstrations throughout the year. By adding up to 200 covers and soft seating areas Pennells Lincoln will join the ranks of the largest restaurants in a UK garden centre.

The number of free parking spaces will be increased by approximately 100 plus additional disability parking bays.

The main contractor for the extension is Maher Millard and the architect is Evolution Design.

Chairman Richard Pennell told GTN Xtra, ‘As the development is an extension our existing restaurant will not be affected during the busy Christmas period.  Fortunately our kitchens are big enough to allow for further increase in sales, we will just have to alter our serverys add we will be looking to add some extra equipment and functionality."  

"The development of the centre is very exciting for us and will provide an improved shopping experience for our customers with a wider range of products. However the heart of the business will continue to be our love of plants, gardens and gardeners!”

In 2008/2009 the Lincoln Garden Centre was redeveloped with new retail areas and a restaurant. At the time this doubled the size of the centre and increased the number of seats in the restaurant to 270. All a far cry from the initial beginnings of the company in 1780.