Whitbread to close Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants

Whitbread, the hospitality group that owns Premier Inn, is undergoing a major restructuring that will result in the closure of its branded restaurant chains across the UK. The company announced it will shut down 89 Brewers Fayre locations on September 7, followed by the closure of all 106 Beefeater restaurants on September 10. Other brands, including Bar + Block, Table Table, and Cookhouse + Pub, are scheduled for a phased shutdown beginning September 3.

The strategic shift aims to transform Whitbread into a “higher-margin, higher-returning pure-play hotel business” by focusing on its core hotel operations. The company plans to convert selected restaurant sites into approximately 600 additional Premier Inn bedrooms, with a goal to increase total room capacity to 96,000 by the 2031 financial year. This overhaul is expected to deliver £250 million in cost savings over five years.

The closures put approximately 3,800 jobs at risk across the UK and Ireland. Whitbread cited rising operational expenses, such as national insurance contributions and business rates, as primary drivers for the decision. To mitigate the impact, the company has reached a conditional agreement to sell 53 branded restaurant sites to Queensway Inns and stated it is attempting to redeploy as many staff members as possible.