Has Heston Changed Little Chef?

In 2008 Heston Blumenthal took on the challenge of revamping the roadside restaurant brand named Little Chef, he started at a single restaurant in Popham, Hampshire. Little Chef, in 2007, was saved from administration by RCapital, a private equity group, where the chain was believed to be losing as much as £3million a year. This revamp was to be filmed during the summer of 2008 to tie in with the 50th anniversary of Little Chef, and aired on Channel 4 early in 2009, with a revisit six months later to see how the restaurants were getting on. These restaurants had been deserted by customers, the chain used to be a very widely known and used restaurant across the country.

Heston gave himself the task of improving the food, from what was a very poor standard, to something he would be happy to serve in his own restaurant, the Fat Duck in Berkshire, although the food he serves there is very scientific in the way it is made and put together on the plate, this would not be expected in a roadside restaurant for families, who would expect to pay no more than £10 for a main course. The revamped menu Heston designed was moved into a further two restaurants in York and Kettering West, the restaurant chain is now doing very well considering it went into administration only two years ago, “with profits forecast at £3m, on turnover of £77m for the 12 months to the end of December 2009”, Kühn, K. (2009). Heston also managed to get the original restaurant he improved into the Good Food Guide whish has only the best restaurants across the country in it, and along with the Good Food Guide, came many extra customers, “since Little Chef at Popham was revamped last year, the restaurant has seen a 500 per cent increase in sales immediately after the programme and is now consistently up 150 per cent year on year” Little Chef (2009).

All of these statistics show Heston Blumenthal has considerably changed Little Chef, with considerable increases in both profits and customers dining at the restaurants affected by Heston so far. All of this is in spite of the difficulties faced when dealing with the chief executive, Ian Pegler.

References

4od. (2009) 4od. [Internet]. Available from: < http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od> [Accessed: 06/11/2009]

Afyia, A. (2009) Heston Blumenthal not consulted about Little Chef menu roll-out. [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed: 06/11/2009]

Cockcroft, L. (2008) Heston Blumenthal to transform Little Chef. [Internet]. Available from: < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/> [Accessed: 06/11/2009]

Kühn, K. (2009) Heston Blumenthal effect raises profit forecasts for Little Chef[Internet]. Available from: [Accessed: 06/11/2009]

Little Chef. (2009) Did Heston Change Little Chef? [Internet]. Available from: < http://www.littlechef.co.uk/promo/channel4> [Accessed: 06/11/2009].

Sharkey, G. (2009) First Little Chef revamped by Heston Blumenthal makes Good Food Guide. [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed: 06/11/2009]

Walton, C. (2008) Michelin-winning chef Heston Blumenthal to revamp Little Chef. [Internet]. Available from: [Accessed: 06/11/2009]