𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

All Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants across the UK will close for good in early September.

Owner Whitbread is undergoing a major overhaul, cutting about 3,800 jobs in the UK and Ireland to make £250 million in cost savings in the next five years.

It has now confirmed the final dates for the affected restaurants, saying that all 89 Brewers Fayre eateries will close after dinner service on 7 September.

All 106 Beefeater sites will shut on 10 September.

Other Whitbread brands, such as Bar + Block, Cookhouse + Pub, and Table Table, will close on 3 September.

Whitbread revealed its plan in April, saying that it would close all of its separately branded restaurants across the country.

The decision impacts around 200 sites in total.

The group is replacing the chains with restaurants inside Premier Inn hotels, which it said is more efficient and “highly popular with hotel guests”.

It is also planning to increase the number of hotel rooms it has open to 96,000 by the 2031 financial year, from the current total of about 86,600.

“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,” Whitbread chief executive Dominic Paul said in April.

“This plan will transform Whitbread into a higher-margin, higher-returning pure-play hotel business.”

The closures come after Whitbread announced the closures of 112 restaurants in April 2024. It said at the time that the spaces would be converted into “more profitable” Premier Inn hotel rooms.

Whitbread is not the only business to say that it is being hit by the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions.

New figures released earlier this month showed that Scottish employers pay an average of £890 extra in tax annually for workers on the real living wage (£26,228).

That figure climbs to £1,053 for workers earning the Scottish median wage of £39,879.

The SNP, who commissioned the analysis, has called on new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to reverse the rise.

Data from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, released in August 20225, showed that company hiring plans had also fallen to a “record low” as they battle rising costs.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who implemented the rate increase and lowered the tax’s starting threshold in 2024, said that the policy was essential for channelling funds into vital public services.