Business

The Restaurant Group (TRG) saw a 2% drop in its like-for-like sales for the 52 weeks ending 30 December 2018 compared with the same period last year. This is excluding the recently acquired Asian restaurant chain Wagamama. Including one week of trading from Wagamama, the group’s total sales increased by…

Embattled cafe chain Patisserie Valerie has fallen into administration, four months after “fraudulent” activities were discovered in its accounts. The company was in talks to extend the standstill of its bank facilities beyond 18 January, but discussions failed and it was unable to renew its bank facilities. The company said…

Britain’s managed pub and restaurant companies escaped recent high street woes over the six-week festive period with collective like-for-like sales up 4.1% on 2017, according to latest figures from the Coffer Peach Business Tracker. Both pub and restaurant operators saw positive sales growth over the Christmas and new year period,…

The 14-strong bar and restaurant group, ETM, has reported its “best ever Christmas” with overall revenue up 16% and like-for-like sales rising to 13.1% for the five weeks up to 31 December. One of the biggest growth areas for the company was in pre-booked event sales which saw an uplift…

Ei Group, the largest owner and operator of pubs in the UK, has announced it has agreed to sell 370 properties to Tavern Propco for the cash consideration of £348m. The group closed 2018 with 412 properties and the disposal of the sites will be comprised of public houses and…

Consumer spending grew 1.8% year-on-year in December, the lowest rate of growth seen since March 2016. With inflation at 2.3%, this equated to a contraction in real terms. Data from Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the nation’s credit and debit card transactions, revealed essential spending growth dipped to just…

Sushi Daily has announced it is to open its first standalone restaurant on London’s New Oxford Street. Previously, the sushi chain existed as a concession in branches of John Lewis and Waitrose however it has now followed smoothie chain Joe and the Juice in branching out of the stores. Sushi…

High street bakery Greggs said it had a “strong finish” to 2018 as it reported its total sales for the year were up by 7.2% for the 52 weeks ended 29 December 2018. This follows a year of “significant strategic progress” where the company saw 149 new shops opened in…

Greene King has announced it hit a record sales figure of £7.7m for Christmas day despite cost cutting amid food price inflation, rising rates and wage increases. The pub chain also confirmed that it had seen like-for-like sales for the the last two weeks of 2018 rise by 10.9%. Greene…

Whitbread’s sale of Costa to Coca-Cola has been cleared by the EU, the clearance means the £3.9bn deal is expected to be completed this month. The sale of Costa will see a £500m share buyback programme triggered which will see “a significant majority of the net proceeds to shareholders”. The…