A "MEMBERS’ club without the snobbishness or the fees" with a unique take on outdoor dining is set to come to The Lanes.

Coppa Club has an exclusive deal to move into a 150 cover restaurant currently under conversion in Brighton Square.

The plans include a pod with a see-through roof inspired by the Brighton Dome and the i360 for up to 100 diners will be designed to allow customers to enjoy alfresco eating all year round .

It is hoped the restaurant could be open by the late summer and The Argus understands the refurbishment could eventually cost £3 million.

A deal with Coppa Club, which has venues at Tower Bridge, St Paul’s and Oxford Circus, is expected to be signed within weeks.

Conversion work of five shops, previously home to Angel Food Kitchen and Giggling Giraffe, into one restaurant is underway, under planning consent agreed in February and could be completed within two months.

Consent is now being sought to convert the underground car park into a kitchen, plant room, dry store and customer toilets and the “all-weather piazza” with doors slid open or shut depending on the climate.

The restaurant will also have large timber folding doors “blurring the lines between inside and outside”.

The dolphin statue from the square’s fountain, installed in 1922 and dedicated to The Royal Alexander Hospital for Sick Children, will be retained in a new water feature.

The plans come at a time of major transformation for The Lanes coinciding with the major redevelopment of the Hanningtons Estate.

Work on landowners Redevco’s significant investment creating a new lane from North Street is also underway and due for completion next summer.

John Gripton, Coppa Club’s property director and Brighton resident, said the city’s culture really suited Coppa’s model where customers can pop in and out two or three times throughout a day for a meal, a drink and a read of the newspapers or drinks with friends.

He said: “Coppa Clubs are members’ clubs without the fuss, without the subscription, its all of the benefits without the snobbishness which people can treat like their home.

"At our Tower Bridge restaurant people use our outdoor igloos whatever the weather.

"The pod has been designed so that when it is raining, the noise will actually be quite soothing.

“Good outdoor places are something that restaurants haven’t really managed, mainly because of the good old British weather."

Centurion Group director Charles Draycott, whose grandfather built the square, said: “Brighton Square is very much a 60s development which is not the flavour today.

“Adding a national restaurant of great quality is going to increase the footfall through the square dramatically and bring the whole of Brighton Square into the modern world.”

A model of proposals are on display in Brighton Square where a drop-in session will be held on Wednesday from noon till 7pm.

A decision on the plans is expected in May.