The Promenade Brewers Fayre restaurant in Margate will be officially shut to the general public from July 5 although it appears to have only traded sporadically since May.
A message sent to ‘Bonus Club’ customers says: “We’ve announced plans to make changes at some of our restaurants.
“Unfortunately, The Promenade Brewers Fayre in Margate will be changing to a Premier Inn restaurant and will only service those staying in the hotel after July 5th.”
In May it was revealed changes would be made as part of owner Whitbread’s ‘Accelerating Growth Plan.’
The hotel and restaurant company announced a plan in its full year results to add 3,500 hotel rooms to its operation – including the conversion of 112 restaurant sites – and to sell 126 lower performing branded restaurants with 21 of those already agreed for sale for £28m.
Restaurants converted to hotel space will have food and drink delivered through an ‘integrated restaurant.’
The end of year report said: “Over the next 24 months we plan to add 3,500 new rooms to our pipeline through a new extensions programme. This includes converting 112 branded restaurants into new hotel rooms having first transferred the delivery of F&B (food and beverages) for our hotel guests at these sites to a more tailored, integrated restaurant, that will be built inside the neighbouring hotel, mirroring the popular format already available at 387 of our hotels.
“We are planning to exit 126 branded restaurants over the next 24 months; they will continue to operate as they do now so that they can be sold as going concerns.
“We have already agreed to sell 21 of these restaurants for £28m. In FY24, these 126 restaurants in aggregate generated revenue of £147m and a PBT loss of £9m.
“The proceeds from these disposals will be used to help fund our investment in building a more tailored, integrated restaurant in our hotels as well as the construction of new hotel rooms across the estate.”
The plans mean the loss of 1,500 jobs out of a total UK workforce of 37,000.
