Thomas Anderson is pressing ahead with the Beeefer Brewers Fayre restaurant acquisition, agreeing to buy 57 restaurant sites and one Premier Inn hotel from Whitbread. The restaurants are due to reopen from next month, with 700 new jobs in prospect.
Common Table Group and Whitbread
57 restaurant sites are included in the deal, alongside one Premier Inn hotel, after Whitbread wound up its Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains last month. Anderson, the founder of Common Table Group, said: “Our priority is to get the sites back open and trading as soon as possible.”
700 new jobs are expected to follow, and Common Table Group said it will invest in refurbishing the restaurants and developing new menus. Anderson also said: “We’re building an entrepreneurial business with a local feel, where our teams are empowered to make decisions and shape each venue around the people and communities it serves.”
Whitbread's shutdown plan
£2bn in cost cuts is what Whitbread set out in April, when it decided to shut all of its non-hotel restaurants and cut nearly 4,000 jobs. The move created the opening for former senior managers to buy back a large block of sites that had already been pulled from service, turning a closure programme into a reopening plan.
£150m in labour cost savings had already been delivered through a previous cost-cutting programme, and Whitbread tied the restaurant shutdowns to higher business rates and National Insurance. Dominic Paul said: “In light of significant cost increases in the form of business rates and National Insurance, as well as the implied market discount to our inherent value, we’ve looked hard at the options open to us,”
Next month reopening
Next month is when the first of the reopened restaurants should start trading again, giving Whitbread's former Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Cookhouse sites a route back into operation after the shutdown. If the refurbishment work stays on schedule, customers and staff will be dealing with a different ownership model but the same locations, now repositioned under Common Table Group.
“We’re excited about what we can create together and look forward to bringing new energy and ideas to our guests.”
