Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa steak restaurant chain plunged into administration yesterday, leading to the loss of 80 jobs.
It is another blow for the celebrity chef after his company revealed it would shut 12 of its 37 Jamie’s Italian branches.
A spokesman for Oliver confirmed that Barbecoa’s restaurant in Piccadilly will close but its other London site near St Paul’s Cathedral will stay open.
Barbecoa trades under the name Barby, and the spokesman said: ‘Barby Limited has been placed into administration.
Last month TV chef Jamie Oliver said he planned to close 12 of the 37 branches of his Jamie’s Italian chain
Barbecoa was set up by the celebrity chef and his friend American barbecue expert Adam Perry Lang (pictured together) in 2011
One New Change Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, has purchased the assets and lease of Barbecoa St Paul’s and will be trading as normal.’
Restaurants have been hit by demand for home deliveries. Barbecoa lost £473,758 in the year to January 1, 2017.
Barbecoa was set up by the celebrity chef and his friend American barbecue expert Adam Perry Lang in 2011.
Plans for a third outlet in Victoria are believed to have been scrapped.
Last month the TV chef said he planned to close 12 of the 37 branches of his Jamie’s Italian chain.
This included branch closures in Bath, Bristol and the City of London, with many others only able to survive because of agreed rent reductions with landlords.
The entire chain would have folded had creditors rejected the proposals.
The barbecue and steak house restaurants are the latest in the TV chef’s group of eateries to suffer from falling bookings and rising costs
Last month the TV chef said he planned to close 12 of the 37 branches of his Jamie’s Italian chain
The 18 best performing restaurants will continue to pay full rent but will move to doing so on a monthly rather than quarterly basis.
A second group of 11 will take a rent cut of 30 per cent. The third band of 13 landlords will see their payments cut by 75 per cent while they wind down their operations before closing entirely.
Court documents revealed that Jamie’s Italian had debts of £71.5m.
The debts include £2.2m which is owed to staff as well as overdrafts and loans totalling £30.2m and £41.3m owed to other creditors including HMRC.
The Jamie’s Italian chain has been troubled by falling sales, soaring costs and steep rise in business rates, as well as poor customer reviews at some sites.
The restaurant business has been hit by tough trading conditions, including rising costs and growing competition.
A switch to home deliveries is also taking its toll on chain restaurants, with Byron and Strada also announcing closures.
David Campbell, a food industry expert at accountants KPMG, said: ‘We are expecting growth over the next year or two to be coming out of independents rather than chains.’
Mr Oliver, 42, learnt to cook from age eight and started his own businesses after leaving school with just two GCSE qualifications and training as a professional chef.
The television star, who has also penned several bestselling cookbooks, is understood to have put £3million of his own fortune into the business and his other firms have loaned £6.5million.
Together with his wife Jools, he is estimated to be worth £150million.
The couple live in a £10million house in Hampstead, North London, and have five children.