Full list of 72 Côte Brasserie restaurants at risk of closure as chain ‘up for sale' – is one getting the chop near you?
The upmarket bistro chain, loved for its croque monsieurs and steak frites, has already shut several sites.
2
2
While around 60 branches are said to be profitable, insiders warn that underperforming locations could be axed if no buyer is found.
Private equity firm Partners Group, which rescued Côte from collapse in 2020, has now called in Interpath Advisory to find a buyer – sparking fears of a major shake-up across the chain.
Several restaurants have already bitten the dust, including Gloucester Quays, which closed earlier this year, and Hampstead, which shut after 14 years.
The Harrogate branch also closed in April, with hopes of relocating elsewhere in the town.
Sources say rising costs, staff shortages, and soaring energy bills have put intense pressure on the business, leaving every branch under review as the sale process unfolds.
Now diners across the country are bracing for bad news – and wondering if their go-to Côte is next on the chopping block.
Full list of Côte Brasserie locations that have closed:
Gloucester Quays
Hampstead (London)
Harrogate
Manchester (St Mary's Street, Deansgate)
Trinity Leeds
Haywards Heath
Full list of Côte Brasserie locations currently operational, but at risk:
Barbican
Covent Garden
Hay's Galleria
Kensington
Marylebone
Sloane Square
Soho
St Christopher's Place
St Katharine Docks
St Martin's Lane
St Paul's
Barnes
Blackheath
Chislehurst
Chiswick
Ealing
Kingston
Muswell Hill
Richmond
Royal Festival Hall
Teddington
Wimbledon
Basingstoke
Bluewater
Brighton
Canterbury
Chichester
Esher
Farnham
Guildford
Hanley on Thames
Horsham
Lewes
Marlow
Newbury
Oxford
Reading
Reigate
Tunbridge Wells
Winchester
Windsor
Woking
Wokingham
Bath
Bournemouth
Bristol - Clifton Village
Bristol - Quaker Friars
Cheltenham
Cirencester
Dorchester
Exeter
Salisbury
West Bridgford
Bishop's Stortford
Bury St Edmunds
Cambridge
Chelmsford
Norwich
Peterborough
St Albans
Welwyn Garden City
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff Central
Chester
Liverpool
Newcastle
York
Edinburgh
Leamington Spa
Shrewsbury
Solihull
Worcester
What happens next?
All 72 Côte Brasserie branches are on the chopping block as the chain goes up for sale – but that doesn't mean they'll all shut.
While some fan-favourite spots could be spared, every single restaurant is under review, and it all comes down to the buyer, the books, and the bottom line.
Huge restaurant chain 'up for sale' putting 70 sites at risk of closure
Only the most profitable sites are likely to survive, so diners are being warned: no location is safe just yet.
Chair of UK Hospitality, Kate Nicholls, said: "If we carry on with these trends and the situation doesn't improve - and clearly Rachel Reeves 's statements are giving a signal to consumers that it is not going to get better any time soon - then I would see this accelerating.
"Unless there is a change of tack by the government, we are looking at 150,000-200,000 fewer workers in hospitality during the first full year of [employer national insurance contribution] changes."
What is happening to the hospitality industry?
By Emily Mee, Consumer reporter
RESTAURANTS and pubs have faced a series of blows in recent years.
The pandemic had already hit businesses hard as hospitality venues were forced to close during lockdowns.
Then they were dealt another blow when the cost of living crisis ramped up, causing customers to spend less on eating out.
At the same time they've been dealing with higher costs of things like energy, rents and supplies.
More recently they've also been hit by the Government's hike in National Insurance costs for employers.
At the same time, the national minimum wage increased - making it more expensive to hire employees.
It's led to numerous chains collapsing or having to close sites in recent years.
TGI Fridays collapsed into administration last year, although has since launched a huge comeback after being forced to close 35 restaurants.
Britain's largest fish and chip chain, Deep Blue Restaurants, has also sold off five of its popular sites.
The brand owns popular chain Harry Ramsden's.
Plus, dim sum chain Ping Pong has closed all of its locations across the country after reporting it had faced "significant disruption" due to the pandemic.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Finextra
6 minutes ago
- Finextra
Corpay agrees $2.2bn Alpha Group takeover
Corporate payments outfit Corpay has agreed to buy British peer Alpha Group for $2.2 billion in cash. 0 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Alpha provides B2B cross border FX to corporations and investment funds in the UK and Europe, holding around $3 billion of deposits in over 7000 client accounts. Corpay says the acquisition will improve its FX technology stack and strengthen its ties with investment managers in Europe and beyond. Alpha shareholders will receive 4,250 pence per share, representing a 55% premium to the closing price on 1 May, the day before potential takeover talks were disclosed. An offer in May was rejected. This transaction meaningfully expands our relationships with investment managers and results in four Cross Border customer segments: corporates, financial institutions, investment funds and digital currency providers,' says Ron Clarke, CEO, Corpay. Corpay has had a busy few months, taking a minority stake in business payments automation platform AvidXchange in a deal also involving TPG, and securing a $300 million investment from Mastercard for a three per cent stake in its cross-border business.
The Guardian
7 minutes ago
- The Guardian
M&S advert banned for featuring model who looked ‘unhealthily thin'
An advert by high street retailer Marks & Spencer has been banned for featuring an 'irresponsible' image of a model who appeared 'unhealthily thin'. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the model's pose, choice of clothing and the camera angle which seemed to tilt downwards all contributed to the impression she was too thin. The picture, which appeared on the M&S app, featured a model wearing slim-fit black trousers and a white off-the-shoulder top, where some of her upper torso can be seen. She faced the camera with one hand in her pocket and the other holding a bag. The advertising watchdog described the model's collarbones as 'very prominent'. It added that the model wore 'large pointed shoes which emphasised the slenderness of her legs' and: 'In part due to the camera angle which appeared tilted downwards, the model's head appeared out of proportion with the rest of her body and further highlighted her small frame.' M&S argued in its submission to the ASA that its 'inclusive women's wear clothing' represented sizes eight to 24. However, it acknowledged that the models in the ads were size eight, and therefore at the lower end of its sizing range. The retailer said it 'took concerns about the depiction of body image in their ads very seriously' and added that 'all models were in good health', and that they 'complied with industry standards and best practices to avoid promoting unhealthy body images'. The ASA ruled that the advert must not appear again in its current form and M&S must ensure all its images 'did not portray models as being unhealthily thin'. M&S confirmed that the images have been removed. The ASA said it also received complaints about three other adverts on the M&S app, website and in an email for the company, where two models wear a pink polka dot dress. In its investigation, it said the model's face 'did not look gaunt', adding that 'while thin, her arms and the leg visible in the shot, did not display any protruding bones'. 'The model appeared in proportion and we considered that she was not presented as unhealthily thin overall,' the ruling concluded. The other images in the ad, which featured another model, also 'showed the model in proportion. We also considered that the model did not appear unhealthily thin in those shots.' The ruling comes amid concerns that the fashion industry is reversing progress made in the body positivity movement in the 2010s due to a recent trend towards skinnier models. Earlier this year, the ASA banned a Next advert for featuring what it deemed an 'unhealthily thin' model in digitally altered clothing. In 2023, it banned Warehouse from using an image of a model in an oversized biker jacket, saying the model's pronounced collar bone, hip bones and torso gave the appearance of her being 'very thin', which made the ad 'irresponsible'. M&S has been contacted for comment.
The Guardian
7 minutes ago
- The Guardian
City trader case always had a whiff of scapegoating
Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, the two City traders whose convictions for manipulating a key benchmark interest rate were quashed on Wednesday by the supreme court, were made 'scapegoats for the sins that led to the financial crisis', says Sir David Davis, the campaigning MP. It is impossible to disagree. And Davis is right that this 'major scandal' ought to prompt questions about how the traders' cases were prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office and why it took so long for their convictions to be overturned. There has been a weirdness about these cases from day one. Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud, the sort of sentence you might get for armed robbery. Hayes's alleged crime was the rather more technical one of encouraging his employer to make a dishonest submission in answer to this question: 'At what rate could the bank borrow funds by asking for and accepting inter-bank offers in a reasonable market size just prior to 11am?' Welcome to the world of Libor, or London inter-bank offered rate. The benchmark is now discontinued but it was used to reflect the rates at which banks could borrow from each other. A panel of 16 banks made submissions and an average was taken to set the benchmark daily. It exploded into public prominence during the financial crisis because the health of banks – as judged by their willingness to lend to each other – became a matter of huge public concern. As banks coughed up huge sums in settlements with regulators for Libor-rigging, as it became known, there was political appetite for prosecutions of individuals. Manipulating Libor came to be seen as the epitome of banks' and bankers' deviousness, even though, in truth, the benchmark had little to do with the source of the financial crisis – and even though individual traders tended to protest that their behaviour was well known to their bosses. But it must have seemed an easy thing to prosecute, not least because Hayes himself had admitted to the SFO over 80 hours of interviews that he had tried to influence Libor submitters to put forward numbers that would advantage his trading positions. The problem was the direction given to the jury in his trial. This is the critical passage in the supreme court ruling: 'It was wrong for the judge to direct the jury that, if the submitter took any account of the commercial interests of the bank or a trader, the rate submitted was for that reason not a genuine or honest answer to the question posed by the [Libor] definitions as a matter of law.' Palombo's trial was compromised similarly. The supreme court still said there was 'ample evidence' that could have led the jury to a guilty verdict for Hayes. But – critically – the judge's errors in direction 'were sufficiently material to make the conviction unsafe'. The troubling aspect is that Hayes's lawyers have been making the central point about misdirection for years. The court of appeal, however, dismissed appeals twice. The case made it to the supreme court only after US courts in 2022 decided two other Libor cases differently, saying there was 'no prohibition' on taking commercial considerations into account when making submissions. Charges against Hayes were dropped in the US. As Davis said at the time, the UK became 'an outlier'. Seven other Libor convictions in the UK now look likely to be challenged. If they, too, are overthrown little will be left of the SFO's post-financial crisis pursuit of traders. Davis referred to what he called a 'scapegoating exercise' that happened as a result of alleged collusion between the banks and government agencies, including the SFO and the Financial Conduct Authority. There has always been a whiff here of the authorities going after relatively lowly, if well-remunerated, traders such as Hayes and Palombo to satisfy a political wish for scalps. Hayes's legal team called for a public inquiry and for the SFO, which has powers to act as both investigator and prosecutor, to be abolished. One suspects neither will happen, although the former would add greatly to public understanding of what happened during the financial crisis. But one hopes that this prod will be acted upon because it came from the supreme court itself: 'The history of these two cases raises concerns about the effectiveness of the criminal appeal system in England and Wales in confronting legal error.' You bet it does.
