UHY Hacker Young Group found that the UK's top 100 restaurants made a cumulative loss of £82m in the past twelve months, compared to a pre-tax profit of £108m the year before.
Rapid physical expansion, poorly indexed on consumer habits has meant that companies have had expend large one-off sums to close loss-making branches - paying redundancy fees, terminating leases ahead of contract expiries and ending supply agreements. This adds to an increase in costs relating to the falling value of the pound and higher staffing costs.
With more than 15 restaurants in London alone, The Gordon Ramsay Group has 35 venues across the globe and the chef seemingly has no intention of curtailing his expansion plans. Shortly after closing Maze in Grosvenor Square in January this year, he launched his pan-Asian concept restaurant, Lucky Cat, in Covent Garden last month.
The chef is also said to be considering the expansion of his bottomless pizza restaurant, Street Pizza, to locations outside of London - despite the middle-market offering being that which has suffered the most financial losses across the UK in recent years.