{{infobox company | name	Little Chef | logo | type Roadside Restaurant Chain | genre Chain of 162 roadside restaurants | foundation 1959 | founder Sam Alper | key_people Tracey Mulligan, Managing Director | location Sheffield, England | homepage www.littlechef.co.uk | owner RCapital }}

Little Chef is a chain of roadside restaurants in the United Kingdom, founded in 1958 and owned by the UK private equity group RCapital. Little Chef's previous owners were The People's Restaurant Group Ltd., a company belonging to British catering entrepreneurs Simon Heath and Lawrence Wosskow, which went into administration on 3 January 2007. Every year, the restaurant serves around 20 million customers, and is famous for its 'Olympic Breakfast'.

Little Chef had five restaurants in the Republic of Ireland, but they were sold to Egan Hospitality with two rebranded as Metzo in 2005 and the rest as Eddie Rockets.

At its peak the Little Chef chain had about 435 restaurants. Little Chef has 162 restaurants.

History

Conception and early years

Caravan manufacturer Sam Alper opened the first Little Chef, with 11 seats, in Reading in 1958. It was modelled after roadside diners he had seen in the United States. By 1968 the business had expanded to twenty five Little Chef Grill bars, mostly featuring "cafeteria" self-service: the two most expensive of the thirty two dishes on the menu were "gammon steak with fried egg, pineapple and french fried potatoes" and "rump steak with onions, tomatoes and french fried potatoes". Both dishes were offered at 9s 6d (equivalent to £0.475). By the end of the 1960s Little Chef had become part of Gardner Merchant, itself a subsidiary of Trust Houses, which merged with Charles Forte's hotel and catering empire in 1970 to become Trust House Forte. By that time, Trust House Forte had 44 Little Chef restaurants.

However, in 1995 Trusthouse Forte announced plans to start converting Happy Eaters to Little Chefs, with fourteen being converted by July.

1980 – 2000

By the 1980s, Little Chef was established as a chain of inexpensive roadside restaurants. In the 1980s Little Chef Lodge hotels were opened alongside some Little Chefs (the hotels were later rebranded as Travelodge), and Little Chefs were opened at larger Trust House Forte service areas on motorways and trunk roads. In 1987 these service areas became known as Welcome Break after the acquisition of the smaller Welcome Break group of motorway service areas and the Happy Eater roadside restaurants, Little Chef's main rival at the time, in 1986 as part of the break-up of Imperial Group. Under Forte ownership Little Chef and Happy Eater retained their separate identities.

Little Chef had a spin off brand called "Little Chef Express" which Forte developed in 1995 as a rival to fast food outlets. The first Express outlet was at the Markham Moor service station (A1 North), though only as an addition to the existing Little Chef menu there. However, only five restaurants were ever built on the roadside, and the idea was re-developed when Little Chef was taken over by Compass, with the Express take outs being set up in food courts, including one in the Eurostar terminal.

In 1996 the catering and broadcasting conglomerate Granada successfully mounted a hostile takeover for the Forte group. The Welcome Break chain was sold by Granada, the Little Chefs at those motorway service areas becoming a similar table service restaurant, Red Hen.

In 1998, Granada bought AJ's Family Restaurants, another Little Chef rival, from the "Celebrated Group" and converted all of its fifteen sites to Little Chefs. AJ's had originally been set up in 1986 by two Happy Eater directors, following Happy Eater's sale to Forte.

2000 – 2007

In 2000 Granada merged with the catering group Compass Group Holdings to form Granada Compass plc, but the two demerged in 2001 leaving Little Chef as part of Compass. At about this time some Little Chefs began serving Harry Ramsden's meals, a cross-branding exercise by Compass who also owned Harry Ramsden's, though this ended in June 2004.

The private equity business Permira bought Travelodge and Little Chef from Compass Group in December 2002 for £712 million, forming a special purpose vehicle called TLLC Group Holdings. Those Little Chefs at Moto motorway service areas – formerly the Granada motorway service areas, and owned by Compass until 2006 – were owned by Moto and operated as franchised outlets.

In August 2004, Little Chef announced it planned to change their logo, to a slimmer version of 'Fat Charlie', the chain's current mascot. Little Chef's chief executive Tim Scoble said that this was " the start of a re-image programme for Little Chef" and that the chain "has become a little bit dated", but now wishes to "take it forward into the 21st century". He also noted later on that "We get accusations that he's overweight and a lot of people have also written in to say it was a small child carrying hot food, which they said was dangerous". However, the idea was dropped after 15,000 customers complained.

In 2005 the company was sold to catering entrepreneurs Lawrence Wosskow and Simon Heath for £58 million. TLLC kept hold of Travelodge, and The People's Restaurant Group Ltd was founded by the new owners of Little Chef, however they continued trading under the same name.

In March 2006, the People's Restaurant Group sold 65 of its sites under a leaseback deal for £59 million to Israeli property group Arazim.

Administration and rescue deal

In December 2006, it emerged that Little Chef were undergoing serious financial problems; they were said to be losing around 3 million pounds a year, struggling to keep up with rent payments and had lost nearly half of their branches in five years. Furthermore, Laurence Wosskow suffered a heart attack and subsequent ill health earlier in the year, and was unable to help turn the company around. On 21 December, Little Chef announced they were in urgent rescue talks with a group of American investors, in the attempt to secure rescue funding. It had been suggested at the time that PricewaterhouseCoopers was on standby to act as administrators for the company; however a source close to the company was quoted as saying “We are still very hopeful that this situation can be resolved.” At the time, the People's Restaurant Group was being advised by KPMG's corporate recovery arm.

They later went into administration in early 2007. In January that year 192 branches were saved (see below). By December 2007 a number of sites not leased from Travelodge or Arazim (Little Chef's two main landlords) closed, as Little Chef had not been able to reach agreements with the individual landlords. As all the franchised outlets at Moto sites closed during 2008/2009, the chain was further reduced. However, during 2008–09 some closed branches from 2007 were re opened at Warwick (A46), Shiptonthorpe (A614), Malton (A64) and Ings (A591). This took the total in Summer 2009 to 177. There is a belief that Little Chef would like to boost their number of sites to 200 again and have targeted Yorkshire and the North East as an area for potential growth. However, in 2009 two more branches closed (Guildford (A3) and South Cave West (A63)) and another thirteen closed in 2010, taking the total number to 162 in August 2010. In January 2007 it was widely reported that Little Chef had been taken into administration.

The company was rescued on 3 January 2007 by RCapital, a UK private equity group, which paid less than £10 million. 38 of the 235 branches were not included in the sale and were closed immediately; the remaining restaurants continued to operate normally.

Competition and decline

Several factors contributed to the decline of Little Chef, including increased competition from other chains and years of under-investment and neglect by numerous owners.

From its inception until the mid 1990s Little Chef had relatively little competition from other chains. However, by the early 2000s, the business was seen to be in decline, sometimes attributed to owners from Granada onwards having extracted too much money from the business without investing in updating the format. Britain's roadsides had become saturated by fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King. Granada opened several Burger Kings within or adjacent to their Little Chef sites as a response, making Little Chef the largest Burger King franchise in the UK.

A further challenge to Little Chef was the rise of pub restaurants which catered both for the business and family markets. Recently refurbished service stations began to offer additional choices such as Marks & Spencer Simply Food and coffee chains such as Costa in place of Little Chef outlets, which appealed to people not wanting to spend a long time over a meal. Furthermore, the construction of the motorway network meant that A-roads (along which Little Chef outlets were usually situated) were no longer used for long-distance travel.

In 2005 it was announced that 130 underperforming restaurants were to be closed, reducing the chain to 234 restaurants. Prior to that however, Granada had been gradually reducing the number of restaurants, from well over 300 at one time. During 2005 Travelodge Hotels Ltd (the new name for TLLC) made various announcements about the sale of some or all of the restaurants, until in October the chain was sold to The People's Restaurant Group Ltd, who planned to modernise the restaurants and introduce self service.

Changes introduced during 2006 included the opening of coffee shops under the name Coffee Tempo! within several larger branches. These 'grab and go' units were developed by Nick Smith, who joined Little Chef as development director after leading the design and implementation of the Wild Bean Café format at BP petrol stations. Little Chef also introduced a takeaway menu. Both initiatives were aimed to increase the appeal of the brand to customers unwilling to spend a long period waiting for table service.

The People's Restaurant group slashed menu prices in an attempt to attract customers. Unfortunately, the only outcome of this was less money going through the tills. It would appear that Little Chef completely ignored the competition it was faced with, not to mention the fact that restaurants had become run down and staffed minimally.

2008 - Present

Heston Blumenthal

It was announced in March 2008 that celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal was to appear in a Channel 4 documentary programme to revamp the Little Chef chain; the programme was broadcast from 19 to 21 January 2009, and involved Blumenthal introducing a new menu and organising a refit at the Little Chef in the village of Popham, near Basingstoke. The trial was successful, with a promise from the owner that none of the dishes would change without Blumenthal's consent. Heston Blumenthal returned to Popham in February 2009 to review progress, and the owner promised that if there was a profit within three months the redesigned format would be spread to all branches. Furthermore two more former Little Chef branches would reopen, in Ings and Malton. It was later announced that a further two Little Chef branches, at York and Kettering, would be refurbished in the style of the trial in Popham.

Menu

Traditionally, a staple of Little Chef's menu has been all day breakfasts, although some can only be bought before 11 am. Nearly all the menu consists of traditional British fayre. Main meals options include burgers, grills, steaks, haddock or cod, all with chips. Pasta and salads were introduced in the early 1990s. For dessert, pancakes have always been the most famous items, with a choice of toppings. There is also a children's menu and a new takeaway menu. Little Chefs offer each diner a free lollipop on leaving.

Prior to the company going into administration, the People's Restaurant Group had begun to modernise the Little Chef menu, introducing 'subs' and panini.

In November 2008 during the revamp, Heston Blumenthal wrote the new menu featuring some of the features famous in his restaurant, The Fat Duck, modernising old British classics. His original menu featuring Lancashire Hotpot with an oyster and buttered roast potato soup got scrapped after taking too long to make and the board of Little Chef disliking it. When shown that menu and given the option in a branch of Little Chef people thought it was "too posh" with 5:1 preferring the old menu. His altered menu featured such dishes as spit-roast chicken, a new Olympic Breakfast, ox cheeks, and new healthier options. The Telegraph newspaper reported in May 2009 that after a seven month trial, the Heston Blumenthal menu was to be rolled out across the entire Little Chef estate, initially at further test sites, and that only minimal changes would be made for logistical purposes.

The new 2011 menu is based upon the one designed by Heston albeit with many of the traditional Little Chef dishes still available. The new concept 'Good to Go' delis serve sandwiches and takeaway meals in several refurbished restaurants.

2011

In 2011, a further ten new concept restaurants opened at Doncaster, Markham Moor North, Shrewsbury, Black Cat, Fontwell, Weston on the Green North, Wisley South, Ilminster, Podimore and Amesbury with a view to investing £20 million in updating the brand across the estate. New menus have been introduced and restaurants have been refurbished based on the style which celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal designed in 2009. A full rebranding exercise was undertaken by Venture Three , which was hailed as a great success by the graphic design community . As part of its modernisation the company used its new branding to create a presence in the digital arena on Facebook and Twitter.

A 'Good to Go' deli offering was introduced in the new concept restaurants, making bespoke sandwiches as well as takeaway meals appealing to customers on the move. 'Good to Go' sits alongside the traditional sit-down Little Chef format.

In May 2011 the company reported a 47% increase in food sales.

References

External links

Reviews:

* Channel 4: http://www.channel4.com/4car/feature/4car-writes/2005/2005-03-01-little-chef.html

* The Guardian : http://travel.guardian.co.uk/restaurants/story/0,,1449178,00.html

* Leicester Mercury

Business articles:

* Little Chef chain says goodbye to Fat Charlie, a 2 March 2006 article from CatererSearch

* UK's Travelodge sells Little Chef for 52 mln stg, an article from Reuters on 20 October 2005

* Permira close to selling Little Chef chain, a July 2005 article from The Guardian

* Little Chef set to become smaller, a February 2005 BBC article

* Compass sells Little Chef and Travelodge, a December 2002 BBC article

Reviews of the TV show Big Chef Takes on Little Chef

* Leicester Mercury

Category:British brands Category:Catering and food service companies of the United Kingdom Category:Economy of Sheffield Category:Restaurants in the United Kingdom

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