Our food is too pricey, admits restaurants boss

THE chairman of the company behind Frankie & Benny’s today issued a mea culpa — admitting it had overpriced food that left customers dissatisfied, as she shut 33 of its worst-performing sites.

Debbie Hewitt admitted The Restaurant Group had scored a string of “own goals” that turned diners off at a time when the company, which also owns Garfunkel’s and Joe’s Kitchen, has been vying for business with fast-growing rivals like Nando’s, Byronn and Turtle Bay.

Hewitt, who ousted chieff executive Danny Breithaupt this month, said a failure to road-test new “authentic” menus meant crowd-pleaser dishes like chicken parmigiana had been mistakenly removed at Frankie & Benny’s. Significanti t price increases, at times above those across the rest of the market, and ending f i xe d - p r i c e lunch offers also flopped, driving away price-conscious customers.

“Disappointingly, the problems are a result of our own internal decision making. Frankie & Benny’s was run very instinctively. The business did not use customer insight as extensively as you might have hoped,” she said.

The Restaurant Group’s like-for-like sales slipped 3.9% in the six months to July 3 and it swung to a first-half pre-tax loss of £22.5 million.

Closing the 33 underperforming loca- tions, which include 14 Frankie & Benny’s and one Garfunkel’s, and writing down the value of 29 others will cost £59.1 million.

Hewitt (pictured) insisted the company remained on track to meet earlier guidance of full-year profit of between £74 million and £80 million before exceptional costs and maintains the dividend of 6.8p a share.

“All of those own goals are fixable. We’ve got the right focus now and the right team. The things that are in our cc oo nn tt rr oo l I am ver y confident aboabout,” she said. Shares in the cc o mpany ro s e 2 6.4 p, o r more than 6%, to 434.2p.

Fo r mer P a d dy Powe r boss Andy McCue is set to join The Restaurant Group next month. He will be rresponsible for a review of ththe group’s other brands. He was brought in after a torrid period that saw the company issue its first profit warning for more than a decade in April and the departure of finance chief Stephen Critoph.

Speculation of a private-equity swoop has been rife but Hewitt said today no approaches had been made.

She added that the retail parks its branches tend to call home, where footfall has been declining as more shoppers go online, were not as a big a concern as previously thought.

“Generally our locations work for us,” she said. “The brand remains relevant and popular.”