Overview
- Whitbread confirmed in late July that Bar + Block, Table Table and Cookhouse + Pub will stop trading on 3 September, all 89 Brewers Fayre sites will close after dinner on 7 September, and all 106 Beefeater restaurants will shut on 10 September, with the Beefeater loyalty scheme ending on 31 August.
- The closures are a central part of Whitbread’s Accelerating Growth Plan announced in April that aims to save £250 million by exiting separately branded restaurants and shifting to in-hotel food offers and hotel expansion.
- Around 3,800 roles are at risk from the programme and the company says it will seek to redeploy many affected colleagues while beginning formal consultations that could still lead to significant redundancies.
- Whitbread plans to convert numerous former restaurant sites into roughly 600 additional Premier Inn rooms, sell about £1.5 billion of freehold properties and grow total rooms from about 86,600 to roughly 96,000 by the 2031 financial year.
- Executives blame sustained cost pressures, notably higher business rates and employer national insurance, and local communities have launched campaigns and voiced nostalgia as hundreds of longstanding pub‑restaurants prepare to close.