London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Brits Emerge From Lockdown to Find Affordable Dining Threatened

Brits Emerge From Lockdown to Find Affordable Dining Threatened

When administrators took over the running of Carluccio’s, the struggling Italian-themed U.K. restaurant chain at the end of March, they found investors had one major issue: figuring out how much it was worth in the post-lockdown world.

Phil Reynolds, one of the administrators and a partner at advisory firm FRP, said that potential buyers wrestled with cost estimates for social distancing measures as well as the future of consumer behavior.

“This uncertainty had an impact on the price that parties were willing to pay,” he said.

Covid-19 has hit the hospitality industry hard all over the world. In the U.K., the pandemic piled more trouble onto a mid-market restaurant sector that’s already suffered years of collateral damage from a declining retail industry and associated hollowing out of British town centers.

A sector that until recently was a common target for profit-hungry private equity buyers is now characterized by cost-cutting drives and humbling negotiations with creditors to soften terms attached to debts that they’re struggling to meet.

Staying Afloat

State-led programs to keep businesses afloat during the lockdown have offered respite to some, but not all, according to Kon Asimacopoulos, partner in the European restructuring group at law firm Kirkland & Ellis.

“While some restaurants have been able to access government liquidity schemes, many have been unable to do so given strict eligibility criteria,” he said.

The nationwide lockdown in late March as the pandemic took hold made an early casualty of Carluccio’s, whose blue-fronted outlets are familiar across British towns and cities. It was eventually sold to Boparan Restaurant Group on May 22, ensuring the brand will live on but with just 30 of its 70 sites open and only after more than a thousand job losses.

Equally ubiquitous names are also struggling. Azzurri group, owner of the Zizzi chain, and Casual Dining Group, which counts the faux French Cafe Rouge chain among its assets have also brought in advisers, buckling under debt loads as their revenues collapse.

“Sites in city centers and around tourist attractions are going to be impacted in the medium term as people continue to work more from home and tourist flows remain low,” said Sophie Aldrich, an analyst at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

A third of businesses in the eating and drinking out sectors expect to close some sites permanently, according to a survey conducted by CGA in April.

The number of petitions to wind up restaurants over unpaid bills jumped to 53 from the beginning of the year until April 20, up 165% from the same period last year. Another surge is expected to follow once lockdown measures are relaxed, according to a report by accountants UHY Hacker Young.

Crunch Points

Lenders to the chains have offered some support, for example by providing loan forbearance for a three-month period to their customers, FRP’s Reynolds said, but there may come a crunch point when this expires at the end of June.

As for rent, one of the biggest fixed costs for businesses, most landlords have supported business tenants who have defaulted as a result of Covid-19 -- so far.

“Mainly because this is the right commercial decision, but also because of a government-imposed moratorium on forfeiture action,” Glen Flannery, a restructuring lawyer at CMS, said.

The moratorium ends on June 30 but may be extended after that.

As restrictions are eased, landlord-tenant disputes are likely to increase as landlords seek to recover arrears of rent and tenants seek to rationalize their property costs, he added.

In this environment, Britons are certain to notice shifts in their options for eating out. A customer base that’s squeamish about using public transport will make it difficult to run a viable restaurant in the commercial centers of big British cities which offer few places to park and are often too far from residential suburbs to be accessible on foot.

Will Wright, head of Regional Restructuring at KPMG in the U.K., thinks that as a result, smaller towns will do better than bigger cities.

“High density corporate environments are going to suffer because more people are going to work from home,” he said. “Are people going to go to central London in the underground or bus to go to a restaurant?”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×