Greene King to axe 25 sites
Greene King will close 25 of sites on a permanent basis as a result of the government’s hospitality curfew, which prohibits bars and restaurants to serve customers past 10pm.
According to Sky News, the pup operator is in redundancy talks with 800 of its employees after the group faced a decline in trade.
It is expected that 79 of Greene King’s pubs and restaurants will shutter, but only the estimated 25 on a permanent basis.
It comes as UKHospitality called on the government to ‘‘rethink’’ the curfew, earlier this week the groups chief executive Kate Nicholls forewarned that these new restrictions could result in “thousands of job losses” by the end of 2020.
Reports suggest that Greene King’s venue closures include 11 of its Loch Fyne restaurants.
A spokeswoman from Greene King told Sky News: “The continued tightening of the trading restrictions for pubs, which may last another six months, along with the changes to government support was always going to make it a challenge to reopen some of our pubs”.
“Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to reopen 79 sites, including the 11 Loch Fyne restaurants we announced last week. Around one-third will be closed permanently and we hope to be able to reopen the others in the future”.
They added the company was “working hard” with its teams to relocate affected members of staff and urged the Government to step in to provide “tailored support” for the sector.
