Little Chef put up for sale

Published: 15 April 2013
By Chris Haycock

The sale is expected to fetch "tens of millions" of pounds for new owner R Capital. Welcome Break and Moto, service station operators are expected to be interested in purchasing Little Chef, says The Sunday Times. Opening in 1958 in Reading, Berkshire (which also coincided with the opening of Britain's first motorway), the first restaurant had just eleven seats, but expanded rapidly throughout the 60's and 70's, and in the 1980's had more than 230 restaurants in Britain. However, the chain suffered as motorway service operators started partnering with popular fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, KFC and Burger King. In 1996 they were bought by Granada, who closed their chain of coffee stops, and changed most Little Chefs to Burger King restaurants. In an attempt to revive their image they recruited celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, who upgraded their menu in a Channel 4 documentary. Astonishingly, Little Chef made it into the Good Food Guide in both 2010 and 2011. The firm employs 1,100, and caters for six million diners each year.