Little Chef

Little Chef is a chain of roadside restaurants in the United Kingdom, founded in 1958 and owned since 20 October 2005 by The People's Restaurant Group Ltd, a company belonging to British catering entrepreneurs Simon Heath and Lawrence Wosskow. Little Chef's headquarters are in Sheffield.

History

Caravan manufacturer Sam Alper opened the first Little Chef in Reading in 1958. It was modeled after roadside diners he'd seen in the United States. By the late 1960s, it had become part of Gardner Merchant, itself a subsidiary of Trust Houses, which merged with Charles Forte's hotel and catering empire in 1970.

In the 1980s, Little Chef was the staple diet for many travelling sales representatives, as well as a place to conduct business.

Little Chef and the rest of the Forte group, including Travelodge hotels, were sold (as part of a hostile takeover) in 1995 to Granada, an operator of motorway service stations. Under Granada, it was run as part of Granada Roadside Restaurants.

In 1997, what was left of the Happy Eater restaurant chain (Little Chef's largest competitor, but owned since the 1980s by Forte) were converted into Little Chefs. In the late 1990s, some Little Chefs began serving Harry Ramsdens meals (it is owned by Compass), though this ended in June 2004.

From their inception to the mid-1990s, Little Chef had relatively little competition from other chains of eating houses. From the mid-1990s, pubs such as Wetherspoons began opening in most towns, offering a standard menu aimed at the business customer during the day, with plenty of parking. McDonald's and KFC also began to rapidly infiltrate the roadside market.

Permira Investment Fund Managers, based in Europe, bought Travelodge and Little Chef from Compass Group in December 2002 for £712m, forming a company called TLLC. A vestige left over from the period of Compass Group ownership is that most Moto motorway service stations (also owned by Compass) have a Little Chef. These Little Chefs are owned by Moto.

In 2005 it was announced that 130 underperforming restaurants were to be closed, reducing the chain to 234 restaurants. 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.

Little Chef was immortalised in song in 1989 by Frazier Chorus, with their rather poignant song, Little Chef.

The Little Chef branch in Thame, Oxfordshire, recently underwent a major refurbishment and was built as a model for how the rest were going to look, but this never took off. The Thame branch has often been publicised in the national press as the Little Chef with the best service in the country.

Menu

The People's Restaurant Group have begun to reform the Little Chef menu, introducing sandwiches - 'subs' - and paninis, and promising more changes during 2006.

Traditionally, a staple of Little Chef's menu has been all day breakfasts. Main meals options include beefburgers, haddock or cod, all with chips. Italian pasta meals were introduced in the early 1990s. Salads are also available.

References

* Official website
* Map of Little Chef Restaurants in the UK
* Reviews:
** Dooyoo.com: http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/restaurants-cafes-national/little-chef-1
** Ciao.com: http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/Little_Chef_Little_Chef__94904
** Channel 4: http://www.channel4.com/4car/feature/4car-writes/2005/2005-03-01-little-chef.html
* 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
* News Items (chronological order)
** Site on the A19 in North Yorkshire gets held up
** Site on the A35 at Corfe Mullen in Dorset gets some impolite visitors
** Site on A45 Northampton ring road gets some teenage gangsters paying a visit
** Site on the A46 Coventry Bypass get some visitors with balaclavas
** Site on the A31 at Ringwood gets some visitors who are armed
** Site on the A5 at Towcester gets helmet-wearing visitors, who don't want a lollipop after their meal
** Site on the A22 at Godstone gets three bad-mannered visitors