Beefeater has confirmed that all of its remaining restaurants will close their doors for the final time on September 10, with customers told they have until August 24 to use any loyalty points earned through the Beefeater loyalty card scheme.
The planned closure of the 106 Beefeater locations will mean job losses for thousands, with parent company Whitbread confirming that 3,800 roles are set to be cut across its restaurant brands in the UK and Ireland.
Whitbread closes all standalone restaurant brands
The 89-strong Brewers Fayre chain will shut after dinner service next month as part of Whitbread's previously-announced move to ditch all its separately-branded restaurants, impacting around 200 sites in total. Other brands such as Bar + Block, Table Table and Cookhouse + Pub will close on September 3.
A spokesperson for Beefeater, which had restaurants and pubs in and around Birmingham, confirmed the loyalty points deadline. The closure date for all Beefeater sites was confirmed by Whitbread, which operates the brand.
Job losses and cost-saving strategy
The decision was revealed in April as Whitbread announced plans to cut around 3,800 jobs in the UK and Ireland under a new five-year strategy to make £250 million in cost savings.
The group is replacing the chains with restaurants inside Premier Inn hotels, which it said was more efficient and "highly popular with hotel guests". Whitbread is still planning to increase the number of hotel rooms it has open to 96,000 by the 2031 financial year, from the current approximately 86,600.
Chief executive explains rationale
In April, Whitbread chief executive Dominic Paul said: "We always challenge ourselves to improve and, in light of significant cost increases in the form of business rates and national insurance, as well as the implied market discount to our inherent value, we've looked hard at the options open to us to maximise value creation over the medium and long-term."
"This plan will transform Whitbread into a higher-margin, higher-returning pure-play hotel business," he added at the time.
