THE cafe/bar at Bury's Met arts centre is to close for three months and be relaunched by an outside catering contractor at a cost of £100,000.

Met bosses said the bar badly needed investment, and they did not have the money.

But Delux, who run the catering at Manchester's Contact Theatre, are expected to plough £100,000 into the Market Street building.

The cafe/bar stopped selling food this week, and will shut after Christmas. It will be refurbished and re-opened in late March as the Automatic Lounge Bar.

Ged Kelly, Met director, said the aim was to turn the cafe/bar into a venue open seven days a week, night and day.

The plans include knocking a hole from the bar through to the studio theatre, into which all downstairs performances will be moved. The new lounge bar would be open regardless of whether a show was on. Mr Kelly said: "The cafe/bar is going to make a profit this year. However, it has needed money spending on it for a long time, and we are not able to provide the necessary level of investment to the infrastructure.

"The deal also gives us a fixed income each year.

"Everything in there will be ripped out. It's back to square one," he added, saying that Delux were definitely trying to create something more up-market and possibly more expensive.

It would have leather seats, sell less but higher quality food, and aim for an audience aged between 25 and 45.

Mr Kelly said the arts centre would still be responsible for putting on performances and setting ticket prices.

"We feel it's a really good opportunity to revamp the space to a level of quality that we feel our audiences deserve," he added.

A YEAR of experimentation and solid improvements is Mr Kelly's summation of 2000/01 for the Met arts centre.

The annual report of Bury Metropolitan Arts Association reveals that the number of events increased by 22 per cent and audience figures went up by 8.5 per cent.

A successful Lottery bid took the Met from a deficit of £33,000 to a surplus of nearly £29,000. It paid for new theatre seating and staging, computers and sound systems, and new signs and lights.

Staff refurbished the theatre floor, first-floor toilets and upper gallery.

However, there were increasing losses on events. The Met was closed for two months for refurbishment, which meant fewer hall hires and reduced income.

Future plans include taking a wider role in the community through festivals, arts projects and education work. Plans to further improve the building would be drawn up.