The owner of Frankie & Benny’s today revealed it will shut around 90 of its 350 restaurants over the next two years.
The Restaurant Group said it will close the sites in its leisure division, which includes the Italian chain and Tex-Mex specialist Chiquito, amid a wave closures in the casual dining sector.
Chief executive Andy Hornby vowed to limit job losses by “redeploying” as many staff as possible to other sites, including in its Wagamama noodles chain, which is expanding.
A string of big brands in the restaurant trade have been hit as Brexit-battered consumers reined in spending while costs including wages have risen. Last year TV chef Jamie Oliver’s Italian chain collapsed while burger businesses Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Bryon Burger shut sites.
Hornby told the Evening Standard: “We are clear that 350 sites is too many but if we get ourselves the right number of sites in those brands we think we have got a good future.
“Where you have seen many of our competitors in casual dining downsizing very abruptly through [restructurings to shut stores] what we are doing here is a very carefully planned two year programme of gradual closures or conversions where we can redeploy the maximum number of colleagues.”
Hornby, best known in the City for his role in the collapse of banking giant HBOS, said trading in recent weeks had been stronger.
