Everyone loves it when a plan comes together. Though where The Columbo Group is concerned, there wasn’t really much of a plan in the first place.

“In all seriousness, there just wasn’t one,” CEO Steve Ball tells Music Week. “Our expansion was haphazard, to say the least.”

Founded by Ball and Riz Shaikh in 2006, the company nonetheless amassed a formidable portfolio of pubs and clubs in the capital prior to its attention-grabbing acquisitions of Camden’s coveted Jazz Cafe and ...