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I think they've got an Olympic sized problem... :-)
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The BBC understands that Little Chef, which employs 1,100 people, was sold for about £15m.
It has been taken over by the UK arm of Kout Food Group, which already runs more than 40 Burger King and KFC outlets in the UK as well as the Maison Blanc brand.
Turnaround specialists RCapital put the company up for sale in April and had warned about its future.
Little Chef serves more than 6 million customers a year.
£15m is a giveaway - the sites alone must be worth that
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>> £15m is a giveaway - the sites alone must be worth that
they're not, how many ex little chef sites have you seen that are still abandoned and unsold? The sci fi one on the A1 north of Newark is still empty.
The remaining places just bought are to be turned into Burger kings or leased to coffee chains. I heard this was coming so I went for my last Olympic breakfast a week or two back. Still a gut busting stunner. One of life pleasures down the pan.
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Not sure how long it will last as little chef though. When RCapital put it up for sale earlier in the year they claimied that they had no interest in saving the brand, just people wanting the sites to turn them into burger kings or costas etc.
I see the buyers already operate 40 BK and KFC outlets in the UK so I will be interested to see what the exciting plans are to revitalise the brand........
I popped into a little chef at the end of last year - think it must have been somewhere up around Wrexham. The place was a state, not at all clean. Put me off going back to one which is a shame as I have happy childhood memories, but IMO the brand and business model is dead
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Couple of years back I went to one of the newly refurbished ones on the A34? in to Oxford. It was very nicely done out in a sort of modern American Diner sort of way, very bright. Staff were good too.
Some footballer (no idea who it was) came in and the ex Mrs recognized him and swooned. I thought his Audi R8 was rather cool.
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I saw Billy Connolly - I was with a friend of some influence with the staff and we were tucking into a plate full of bacon butties. Connolly clearly indicated that he wanted the same deal - only to have the waitress shake her head at him....
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Heston's delicate touch didn't solve anything ?
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From now on the oil the chips were fried in will come from Kuwait.
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My nearest former Little Chef is now a curry house, and doing very well. The tastes of UK customers have changed.
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So's ours - must be a trend
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"The tastes of UK customers have changed."
Have they though? McDonalds sell basically the same sort of food and they do OK . Majority of pub menus are something fried plus chips. I think that Little Chef places just got old and tired and they never spent any money on them.
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£15m for 80 sites selling food - call it £200K per site!
New premises are expensive but buying land and getting planning permission for a fast food outlet is VERY EXPENSIVE - £200K per site is a bargain.
1998 I was taking my student son for a 10 week summer placement and called in 1/2 way there at a Little Chef - he had a burger, fries etc and a drink was £12! I thought that really expensive and was the last time I crossed the threshold of a Little Chef.
Post Script - 10 weeks work experience, he got a job there full-time after graduating - he is now the in charge of the "Work Experience Department" 15 years later...........so the trip up the road, whilst arduous, was worth it - for him at least!
Many students will now realise Graduating is hard work, but finding a job is even harder!
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>> "The tastes of UK customers have changed."
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>> Have they though? McDonalds sell basically the same sort of food and they do OK
>> . Majority of pub menus are something fried plus chips. I think that Little Chef
>> places just got old and tired and they never spent any money on them.
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Problem is people want to get from A to B and dont want to spend 1.5 hours sitting, choosing, ordering, waiting etc.
MackyD's order, almost instant delivery, leave, or drive through and take with you
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I suppose so. I'm no expert. I have only ever been into one branch of Macdonalds and that was a least fifteen years ago. I bought a cup of coffee and it was vile so I never ventured there again.
Personally I would welcome a chain of decently priced clean and efficient roadside restaurants that served stuff other than chips and fried food and provided a quiet and restful environment. I doubt that I am going to get it though!
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 6 Aug 13 at 22:27
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>>Personally I would welcome a chain of decently priced clean and efficient roadside restaurants that served stuff other than chips and fried food
They used to be called cafes. There was one, called the Imperial, in my home town that actually served Brown Windsor soup, later of Fawlty Towers fame. I always had the Shepherd's Pie,but it was a long time ago and I might have confabulated the memories.
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Little Chef sold out to.....Kuwait.. - Meldrew
