Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant group reports £12m in pandemic losses
Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant empire has reported almost £12m in losses and cut almost 300 staff because of closures and restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic as the businessman warned of the potential impact of soaring inflation and rising bills onrestaurant dining habits.
The celebrity chef runs or owns a stake in 35 restaurants in the UK – including Pétrus, Bread Street Kitchen, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and three at the Savoy – and has licence agreements for a further 13 worldwide.
The latest published company accounts for Gordon Ramsay Restaurants show that his businesses made a pre-tax loss of £6.84m in the year to the end of August 2021, after a £5m loss in the same period in the preceding year, which included the first months of the pandemic.
Last year, Ramsay said his restaurants had suffered tens of millions of pounds in revenue losses because of cancelled reservations due to coronavirus.
The latest companies accounts highlight the extreme financial pressure the hospitality trade has faced, with the £26.2m in revenues Ramsay’s restaurants made in its last financial year less than half the £54.7m they made before the pandemic hit, in 2019.
In the year to the end of August 2019 the company made £15m in profits. As the ultimate controlling party, Ramsay effectively earns what the company makes in post-tax profits, which was £11.9m in 2019.
The company said that since February, when the last of the restrictions on hospitality businesses were lifted in England after the initial outbreak of the Omicron variant, its restaurants had bounced back to profitability and sales were “consistently ahead of pre-pandemic trading”.
However, with household budgets continuing to be squeezed by soaring energy bills and inflation hitting
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