Jamie Oliver backed Cock Inn forced to close

18 January 2008 by
Jamie Oliver backed Cock Inn forced to close

Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation pub The Cock at Beazley End in Essex has been forced to close, Caterer has learnt.

Aaron Craze and his partner Nicci won the chance to run the pub after competing against 13 other Fifteen graduates in the Channel 4 programme Jamie's Chef in February last year.

After Craze initially struggled to run the pub successfully, he seemed to have turned around the business by the summer when Caterer ran an exclusive cover story on The Cock.

However, the pub ran into financial problems and was forced to shut.

A spokesman for the Fifteen Foundation said the organisation is currently in discussions about taking The Cock forward as a business.

"Aaron and Nicci have worked tremendously hard and produced an award-winning product to try to make it work but many small businesses struggle, especially in rural areas and in the current economic climate," he said.

"Decisions are currently being made to help the family and Aaron has been offered work within the Jamie Oliver organisation."

A Beazley local told the Mirror he felt the pub's Italian food offer did not fit the market.

"He turned it from a delightful country pub into a vulgar gastropub selling over-priced, poncey food," he said.

Jamie Oliver's Chef doing a sterling job at The Cock >>

Jamie Oliver to launch new high-street restaurant group >>

Read more about Jamie Oliver and Fifteen >>

Jamie Oliver news round up >>

Fifteen Foundation website >>

By Kerstin Kühn

E-mail your comments to Kerstin Kühn here.

The Caterer Blog](http://www.caterersearch.com/blogs/catering-news-blog/) Catch up with more news and gossip on the Caterer Blog here
[Newswire For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail news alerts.
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking