{"id":8145,"date":"2019-03-04T13:32:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T13:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/giraffe-and-eds-easy-diner-chains-to-close-27-sites\/"},"modified":"2019-03-04T13:32:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T13:32:42","slug":"giraffe-and-eds-easy-diner-chains-to-close-27-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/giraffe-and-eds-easy-diner-chains-to-close-27-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Giraffe and Ed&#8217;s Easy Diner chains to close 27 sites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Giraffe restaurant\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/11E7A\/production\/_105883337_giraffe_pa.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">PA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The owner of Giraffe and Ed&#8217;s Easy Diner is to close 27 restaurants putting hundreds of jobs at risk.<\/p>\n<p>The brands will enter a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) and close almost a third of their 87 restaurants.<\/p>\n<p>Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG) said sales had improved at the chains since they were acquired in 2016, but several sites remained unprofitable.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Crowley, chief executive of BRG, said: &#8220;The CVA is the only option to protect the company.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;The combination of increasing costs and over-supply of restaurants in the sector and a softening of consumer demand have all contributed to the challenges both these brands face.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The proposal to enter a CVA will be put to a creditor vote, with advisers from KPMG overseeing the insolvency process.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46571992\" class=\"story-body__link\">Restaurant insolvencies jump by 25%<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-42923499\" class=\"story-body__link\">What\u2019s eating the restaurant trade?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>BRG snapped up Giraffe from Tesco in 2016, before combining it with Ed&#8217;s Easy Diner, which it had bought in a pre-pack administration the same year.<\/p>\n<p>The two brands form a combined entity, which in the most recently available accounts had annual turnover of \u00a367.1m with underlying losses of \u00a31.6m.<\/p>\n<p>The company owns 70 branches of the two chains, with 17 franchised restaurants unaffected by the CVA.<\/p>\n<p>Will Wright, restructuring partner at KPMG, said: &#8220;This CVA seeks to address the cost of the company&#8217;s leasehold obligations across a number of unprofitable sites, and if successful, will put the business on a surer financial footing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Creditors will vote on the proposal on 21 March with at least 75% needed to approve it for the CVA to proceed. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">PA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>BRG also owns other brands, which are not involved in this CVA. These include fish and chip restaurant Harry Ramsden and the upmarket Cinnamon Collection.<\/p>\n<p>It is also the master franchisee for US brand Slim Chickens, which first opened in the UK last year.<\/p>\n<p>BRG is owned by &#8220;chicken king&#8221; Ranjit Boparan, who also owns the 2 Sister group, which supplies food to supermarkets such as Aldi, Asda, Co-op, KFC, Lidl, Marks &amp; Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury&#8217;s, Tesco and Waitrose.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, rising costs and tougher competition led to several restaurant brands shutting branches, including Prezzo, Jamie&#8217;s Italian, Byron, Carluccio&#8217;s, Gaucho and Gourmet Burger Kitchen.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-47440292\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright PA The owner of Giraffe and Ed&#8217;s Easy Diner is to close 27 restaurants putting hundreds of jobs at risk. The brands will enter a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) and close almost a third of their 87 restaurants. Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG) said sales had improved at the chains since they were acquired &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}