Historic Centre becomes focus of real estate transactions

Bucharest's historic centre has been the scene of the first transactions sealed between coffee shop owners, pubs, and restaurants, after for two years in a row investors took over old stores, mostly dilapidated ones, retrofitted them, and turned them into stores with hundreds of thousands of euros in sales per year.
Up until now at least four restaurants have changed their brand, after their managers sold the refurbished and fully equipped places for sums that enabled them to cover the initial investment or even exceed it twice or three times.
According to figures thrown around on the market, a restaurant in the Old Centre, which had entailed 200-300 thousand euros in investments, are sold for close to one million euros.
"In August 2009 I sold the pub I had opened a few months before, in order to focus my investment on a bigger place, covering 750 square metres, with an interior garden, a terrace, an underground club, that can accommodate a total of 400," says Cristi Dumitriu, one of the owners of Old City pub in Lipscani, which he manages with his Italian partner, Osvaldo Iandolo, via Lipscani Beer Garden company.
Dumitriu sold Pub Vintage to Remus Nica, who renamed the restaurant The Vintage Pub.