Carluccio's cooks up £10m restaurant rescue plan
Landmark, the Italian chain’s Dubai-based owner, will invest up to £250,000 at over 60 sites to overhaul the menus, design and service.
On-going food development at the company will also be overseen by a new senior management team.
It comes after Carluccio's entered in to a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) in May that will see it close up to 30 of its 103 restaurants.
CEO Mark Jones, who joined the business in January, says the chain could now look “positively to the future”.
Carluccio’s accounts for the year to 24 September 2017 show pre-tax earnings almost halved to £6.5m, while group revenues dropped £2.7m to £138.2m.
It incurred £24m one-off costs, while an impairment of £22.3m was made against the book value of the restaurant portfolio to reflect pending closures.
The chain was founded by chef Antonio Carluccio in the 1990’s and was bought by Landmark for £90m in 2010.
Despite its difficulties on the high street the company has continued to expand in to hotel restaurants, and opened its third site in two years with Marriott Hotels in April.
Last week Italian chain Strada also announced plans to rebrand and update its menus after closing a number of its restaurants since late 2017.
