Whitbread to trim down restaurants
Whitbread is to sell off 10% of its restaurants in a bid to make the division more profitable, but none of its major chains have been axed completely.
It has earmarked 140 sites for sale, including 30 Café Rouge brasseries, 10 Bella Pastas and seven others from its high-street restaurants division. The remaining disposals will be tail-end sites from its other chains.
The future of Whitbread's chains will depend on their performance, said Bill Shannon, managing director of the restaurant division.
Within the next three to four years, they will need to deliver an average 10% compound growth in annual profits, or face the chop.
The Café Rouge sites on the market are mainly smaller outlets. A new-look Café Rouge and Bella Pasta will be piloted in the new year, and the 259-strong Beefeater chain is to undergo a radical overhaul.
About 80 Beefeaters are to be converted to a new format called Out and Out. Shannon described these as "destination restaurants… not so dependent on steak and pure Britishness". They will be introduced over the next two years.
Another 90 "neighbourhood" Beefeaters will convert to a format called Banter, aimed at under-45s. Most of the remaining Beefeaters will continue under their old name.
The 274-strong chain Brewers Fayre and 118-strong, family-orientated Brewsters chain will be expanded by about 20 new restaurants a year.
But Whitbread will dispose of more "bottom-end" sites from this chain than the four or five it currently sells each year.
The programme of acquiring sites for Costa coffee bars will be stepped up. Whitbread has 222 Costas at the moment and wants 500 by 2004.
The 439-strong Pizza Hut chain will be expanded by about 20 full-service restaurants and by some 30 home-delivery stores a year. The new home-delivery stores will be franchised out.
At TGI Friday's, where like-for-like sales have been falling for almost a year, expansion has been put on hold while Whitbread tests out a new, lighter look for the restaurants. But Shannon said: "By 2004 we will have expanded the chain."
Smaller chains, such as Mamma Amalfi and Abbaye, will have to vie with each other to see which of them survive.
The number of Dragon Inns - English pubs serving Oriental food - will be doubled from five to 10 in the short term.
The Dôme and Casa chains are already up for sale, as these were moved to Whitbread's pubs and bars division in March.
by David Shrimpton
