Plans for a 44-seat restaurant and drive-through on the vacant grassed area at the front of Northpoint Shopping Complex on Mortlake Road have been lodged with the council.

Franchisee David Bird said the restaurant would be built as soon as possible if it received the go-ahead.

But he said they were only at the start of the planning process and there was still a long way to go.

"Obviously we are in the hands of the council and we strongly believe in the process," he said.

Mr Bird said the project would create about 60 jobs for the city as well as another three to four manager positions.

And that doesn't include the work it would create during construction of the new store, which would cost between $1.8m to $2m, and another $300,000 to $400,000 to fit out.

"It's exciting," Mr Bird said.

Once that store was built, the Raglan Parade site would then undergo a major revamp.

A second store for the city has long been on the radar of The Bird Group, but finding a suitable site has been a five-year search.

"We certainly need a second store to make sure we give the best service to our customers," Mr Bird said.

"It's been a difficult process to try and find commercial land in town. We've been looking for maybe three to five years.

"There is not a lot of commercial land available in Warrnambool, and we've tried to have a look at a few other places but haven't been successful so we're hoping at this point in time with council approval we'll be able to move forward."

Mr Bird said the Warrnambool-based business - which employs about 500 people across south-west Victoria and into South Australia - was expanding.

But the second store for Warrnambool was the priority, he said.

The company purchased land in Naracoorte this year to build a store there. "We're ready to build there but we can't get across the border," he said.

"That's made it difficult. We've had to put that one on hold for a little while until the borders open up."

The are also hopes plans before council will be approved before the end of the month to build a store in Stawell.

"We've got three stores we want to build in the next 12 months plus we want to close down the city store at some stage next year in Warrnambool and rebuild that," Mr Bird said.

The Ararat store would also be upgraded at the same time.

He said the group owned the Warrnambool, Portland, Hamilton, Horsham, Ararat, Maryborough and Mount Gambier City stores.

And about 12 months ago they also built a drive-through only store in Mount Gambier.

"It's a four-lane drive through with no restaurant, so it's the second one in the world to be built," Mr Bird said.

He said they bought the Warrnambool store in 1997, and slowly built up the business from there.

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