The owner of Byron Burgers has confirmed it will shut nine restaurants across the UK after falling into administration. The closure will include Bryon Burger's Manchester restaurant situated in Piccadilly Gardens.
In a major blow to the highstreet, Famously Proper, which owns Byron and fried chicken brand Mother Clucker, have said it will cut 218 jobs as a result of the closures. The company was set up after private equity firm Calveton rescued Byron from a previous administration in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic.
There was speculation earlier this week that the owners of the Byron investment firm, Calveton, were set to strike a possible deal with the burger chain’s administrators. Today, the administrators from Interpath Advisory were appointed and immediately confirmed the company has been sold in a pre-pack administration to Tristar Foods, a new company linked to Calveton.
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Joint administrators for the company said the remaining 12 sites and 365 jobs will be transferred to the buyer. The collapse of Famously Proper was attributed to the rise in costs, such as food and utilities, as well as a reduction in consumer spending due to the current cost-of-living crisis.
The insolvency experts said they had explored a number of options aimed at securing the company’s future but turned to administration after no solvent bids were made to buy the business.
Ms Winder, managing director at Interpath and joint administrator, said: “Like many other companies across the hospitality sector, Byron had seen a boost in trading following the end of the Covid lockdown measures. However, the sky-high inflation seen in 2022 saw costs spiral and resulted in reduced customer spend, which in turn placed significant cashflow pressure on the business.
“We are pleased to have concluded this transaction which will see the Byron name continue to trade on high streets across the country and which, importantly, has preserved a significant number of jobs.”
The administrators stressed that they will be “providing support to those impacted by redundancy, including providing the information required to make claims from the Redundancy Payments Office.”
The administration comes just two years after the chain closed 31 of its sites, with 650 jobs lost. At the time, it appointed administrators and the London Mayfair-based investment firm took over. Byron opened its first site in the UK in 2007, growing quickly with 60 sites across the UK at one point, but ran into trouble in 2018 when it went through a restructuring exercise and closed underperforming restaurants.
Byron's Piccadilly restaurant opened in March 2015 in the former Kro Bar site - the second location after opening on Deansgate. It expanded to the Corn Exchange not long after but closed in 2017, while the Deansgate restaurant closed in 2018.
The sites set to close are:
- Bluewater shopping centre, Kent
- Chelmsford
- Edinburgh, Lothian Road
- Leeds
- London, Wembley
- Manchester
- Milton Keynes
- Salisbury
- Southampton
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