Jamie Oliver will steer clear of the UK casual-dining sector because of the “huge pressures” on mid-market restaurants, according to the chief executive of the celebrity chef’s business.
Kevin Styles, who took over as chief executive of Oliver’s business empire last year, told the Financial Times he would “not try to replicate” the rapid expansion of the Jamie’s Italian chain, which grew from a single Oxford restaurant in 2008 to 25 sites before it collapsed into administration in 2019 with £85m of debts.
Jamie Oliver Catherine Street, a new upmarket restaurant offering from the TV chef, and the first owner-operated UK site since the administration, is set to open in London’s Covent Garden in November.
“We’re going to be very strategic and targeted about what we do in the UK restaurant space,” said Styles. “We’re not trying to execute a 30-40 site restaurant chain.”
Justifying his decision to set up a restaurant pitched at a higher price point than Jamie’s Italian, Styles said: “There’s going to be huge pressures in the mid-market, there always is when an economy is flagging.
“The mid-market, casual-dining sector has hit some significant issues in terms of competition, in terms of rent, in terms of [business] rates, in terms of energy, all that sort of stuff,” said Styles. “That’s been a perfect storm not just for [Jamie’s Italian] but for many other businesses as well.”
In a turnaround since the collapse of Jamie’s Italian, which led to more than a 1,000 job losses and which Oliver described as “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do”, his business empire of 70 franchised restaurants worldwide announced on Wednesday that it had posted a pre-tax profit of £7.7m in 2022, up from £6.5mn the year before. Sales were up 8.1% to £29.7mn.
Oliver and his wife Jools paid themselves a dividend of £6.8m off the back of a jump in revenues not only from restaurants but also from TV shows, about 2m cookery books sold and Oliver’s London cookery school. The dividend paid to the couple increased 21% compared with a year earlier.
