Friday Five: the week's top news
- Gordon Ramsay's restaurant group is back in the black after posting a £3.8m loss in 2017. The chef's company, which includes 38 restaurants worldwide, saw pre-tax profits rise to £500,000 in the year to August 2018. Ramsay also revealed that his upcoming Lucky Cat restaurant in Mayfair has already taken over 3,000 reservations ahead of its opening in June.
- Health-focused cafe chain Filmore & Union has been bought out of administration with the closure of seven sites, resulting in 80 job losses. The company's ten remaining locations across the North of England have been acquired by Coffeesmiths Collective, which owns The Department of Coffee and Social Affairs.
- The German Doner Kebab chain is planning to open a new restaurant every two weeks between now and the end of the year. The group says it serves over £1m worth of kebabs a month across its 33 UK sites, and is targeting 'relentless growth' in regional locations.
- Barullo, the restaurant launched in the City of London by chef Victor Garvey in March, has closed. A spokesperson says Garvey stepped down as chef patron in April and was "sorry to see" that the site had shut. The chef continues to run Soho restaurant Rambla and is understood to be planning a further opening later this year.
- Nearly half of the 'top 100' UK restaurant chains are loss making, according to a study by accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young. The report says 48 groups are now in the red, up from 37 last year, with the total list making an £82m loss.
For more of this week's news, click here.
