BWS and Raku Izakaya to join Westpoint Shopping Centre

The latest additions to join the Westpoint community are BWS, taking over from D'Aquino's who sold several of their shops to the Endeavour Group's liquor chain, and a new Japanese restaurant.

Westpoint development manager Jonathan Carlile said they're looking forward to welcoming the newcomers and hoping to attract more tenants to the centre.

"We've got the Japanese restaurant from Orange, Raku Izakaya, they will open early 2022 ... next to Dominos and they're pretty well-regarded from what I understand in Orange, everyone speak very highly of them," he said.

"We're really excited about that one coming to us, it's really going to lift the centre and give a whole different dining experience to our customers there."

Originally that shop was meant for a drive-through coffee shop, but Mr Carlile said they plan to use the driveway area for cool rooms and storage to free up some space inside the restaurant.

With diversity being the main aim for Westpoint they are hoping to attract some more businesses to add to the centre.

"We've got a couple of other tenants looking at a couple of other spaces at the moment so it's very exciting," Mr Carlile said

"We've got a couple of key shops there we'd still like to release.

"We'd love to get a chicken shop there for example, maybe a sports gym or something of that nature ... we definitely need a hairdresser."

Though not located in the CBD the Westpoint Shopping Centre accumulates a lot of traffic and Mr Carlile believes it would be the perfect location for any business.

The IGA sees around 7000 customers a week now and with easy parking plus the other stores all being close together it's a one-stop-shop for locals.

"So the traffic is concentrated and there's [opportunity], particularly for businesses like hairdressers, barbers, more takeaway food, to capitalise on that sort of traffic," Mr Carlile said.

"The other big thing which I think has changed a lot of people's shopping habits is we're an open air centre ... you're not in an enclosed space and it's a lot safer than the alternative we think."

Mr Carlile said there's some other announcements not too far away so "watch this space."

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