Gordon Ramsay: The infamous bad mouthed and decorated British chef is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic not with Michelin stars in his eyes but with cold, tough plans, loads of medium-sized „street” restaurants all over Open UK Yahoo reports the Chef’s group is driving an „ambitious” expansion strategy led by new CFO Antony Perring, formerly Leon and Wagamama, that will open 10 new restaurants „by summer”.
Ramsay and the money people around him seem poised to fill the void the casual food market’s collse left in the three years leading up to the pandemic. Pizza Express, Byron Burger, Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Frankie and Benny’s were affected to varying degrees by rising real estate and ingredients costs, prices and increasing competition. The pandemic simply accelerated its inexorable decline.
But Ramsay, with prepackaged roll-out brands like GR’s Street Burger and GR’s Street Pizza, said, „Despite all the pandemic-related challenges, we need to be optimistic, forward-thinking and investing again in our amazing industry.” These brands are Bish-Bash-Bosh of restaurant openings and are perfect for falling into a void created by several crises: comparatively inexpensive, low-risk, low-risk and of little interest. But in a post-pandemic world of dining options for the new, creative or previously underrepresented, Ramsay’s “street” brands are as insincere as they are cynical and uninteresting. Britain dared to dream; it looks like there is going to be a national kitchen nightmare.
At the start of the pandemic and no doubt predicting it would be easy to borrow and find property, Ramsay bragged about opening 50 restaurants in the UK while asking about the millions of pounds it would take to do so. Well, it looks like he got it, and it looks like he could: In the past few weeks, Ramsay has opened five restaurants, including three burger joints in Charing Cross, Kensington, and Woking, Big Hospitality Reports. But GR10 wants more and said yesterday, May 17th, “We have an incredibly ambitious global growth strategy and I’m excited about it [Perring] in the team to advance our future expansion plans. “Perring is responsible for Wagamama restaurants and Leon concessions across the UK
This is all in spite of the fact that Ramsay The UK restaurant’s portfolio has reportedly lost over £ 56million during the pandemic.
Ramsay talked about how devastating lockdowns were while it was „Criticized because I’m rich, but the responsibility on my shoulders – the livelihood – is huge.” Ramsay has been criticized for his company 500 employees were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and then failed to answer questions about why they weren’t on leave.
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