page_title: Little Chef
section_title: 2000–2007
hierarchical_section_title: Little Chef / History / 2000–2007
caption_attribution_description: Little Chef, Eastham
context_page_description: Little Chef was a chain of restaurants in the United Kingdom, founded in 1958 by entrepreneur Sam Alper, who was inspired by American diners. The chain were famous for their "Olympic Breakfast" – its version of a full English – and "Jubilee Pancakes". The restaurants were mostly located on the roadside near A roads, often paired with a Travelodge motel and a petrol station, as well as on motorways in Moto Services.
  The chain expanded rapidly throughout the 1970s, and its parent company would acquire the Happy Eater chain in the 1980s, its only major roadside competitor. When its owners converted all Happy Eater restaurants to Little Chef in the late 1990s, this allowed it to peak in scale with 439 restaurants. Little Chef began to face decline in the early 2000s. This was mainly due to the chain expanding too fast, meaning it could not properly invest in all of its locations. The lack of investment tainted the brand image of Little Chef, making it appear outdated to consumers in the 2000s. The chain was also facing increased competition as motorways had become favoured by motorists over A-roads for long-distance journeys.
context_section_description: In 2000, Granada merged with the Compass Group to form Granada Compass, but the two demerged in 2001 leaving Little Chef as part of Compass. At about this time some Little Chefs began serving Harry Ramsden's meals, a cross-branding exercise by Compass who also owned Harry Ramsden's, though this ended in June 2004.
  The private equity business Permira bought Travelodge and Little Chef from Compass Group in December 2002 for £712 million, forming a special purpose vehicle called TLLC Group Holdings. Those Little Chefs at Moto motorway service areas – formerly the Granada motorway service areas, and owned by Compass until 2006 – were owned by Moto and operated as franchised outlets.
  In August 2004, Little Chef announced it planned to change its logo, to a slimmer version of 'Fat Charlie', the chain's current mascot. Little Chef's chief executive Tim Scoble said that this was " the start of a re-image programme for Little Chef" and that the chain "has become a little bit dated", but now wishes to "take it forward into the 21st century". He also stated that: "We get accusations that he's overweight and a lot of people have also written in to say it was a small child carrying hot food, which they said was dangerous". However, the idea was dropped after 15,000 customers complained.
  In 2005 the company was sold to catering entrepreneurs Lawrence Wosskow and Simon Heath for £58 million. TLLC kept hold of Travelodge, and The People's Restaurant Group Ltd was founded by the new owners of Little Chef, however they continued trading under the same name. In March 2006, the People's Restaurant Group sold 65 of its sites under a leaseback deal for £59 million to Israeli property group Arazim.
  In December 2006, it was reported that Little Chef was undergoing serious financial problems; the business was said to be losing around £3m a year, struggling to keep up with rent payments and had lost nearly half of its branches in five years. Furthermore, Laurence Wosskow suffered a heart attack and subsequent ill health earlier in the year, and was unable to help turn the company around. On 21 December, Little Chef announced it were in urgent rescue talks with a group of American investors, in the attempt to secure rescue funding. It had been suggested at the time that PricewaterhouseCoopers was on standby to act as administrators for the company; however a source close to the company was quoted as saying "We are still very hopeful that this situation can be resolved." At the time, the People's Restaurant Group was being advised by KPMG's corporate recovery arm.
  In December 2006, Little Chef was taken into administration, and the company was then rescued on 3 January 2007 by RCapital, a UK private equity group, which paid less than £10 million. 38 of the 235 branches were not included in the sale and were closed immediately; the remaining restaurants continued to operate normally.
  By December 2007 a number of sites not leased from Travelodge or Arazim (Little Chef's two main landlords) closed, as Little Chef had not been able to reach agreements with the individual landlords. As all the franchised outlets at Moto sites closed during 2008/2009, the chain was further reduced.
  Several factors contributed to the decline of Little Chef, including increased competition from other chains and years of under-investment and neglect by numerous owners.
  From its inception until the mid-1990s Little Chef had relatively little competition from other chains. However, by the early 2000s, the business was seen to be in decline, sometimes attributed to owners from Granada onwards having extracted too much money from the business without investing in updating the format. Britain's roadsides had become saturated by fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King. Granada opened several Burger Kings within or adjacent to their Little Chef sites as a response, making Little Chef the largest Burger King franchise in the UK.
  A further challenge to Little Chef was the rise of pub restaurants which catered both for the business and family markets. Recently 
caption: Little Chef in Eastham, Merseyside in 2006.
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