Whitbread, the parent company of Premier Inn, has announced when all 106 of its Beefeater pub-restaurant locations throughout Britain will cease operations.
The shutdowns are part of an extensive five-year business plan. While most workers will keep their jobs, approximately one in eight staff members at the affected establishments will lose their positions.
The company also plans to dispose of freehold properties worth £1.5 billion, reducing the proportion of sites it owns directly from half to under a third. In correspondence sent to members of its loyalty programme, Whitbread confirmed that every Beefeater branch in the country will stop trading on September 10.
No establishments in Coventry itself will be impacted, though three venues in the surrounding region are scheduled to close. These include the Brewers Fayre Central Park in Rugby, along with the Beefeater Griff House in Nuneaton and the Beefeater George in the Tree in Balsall Common.
Whitbread chief executive Dominic Paul directly attributed the situation to escalating costs driven by government measures, claiming that recent increases to business rates and employer National Insurance contributions have made the conventional pub-restaurant format unviable. The hospitality group will now focus exclusively on its Premier Inn hotel chain, according to the Liverpool Echo.
The closures are elements of a broader £250 million restructuring initiative that will see roughly 600 additional Premier Inn bedrooms established within repurposed dining areas. A substantial portion of the former Beefeater sites will be transformed into compact kitchen facilities serving hotel guests only.
These locations will no longer function as conventional pubs or eateries open to the general public.
In outlining the rationale, Mr Paul stated that the company intends to transform all remaining branded dining establishments into integrated food and beverage services tailored to hotel guests, which will enable the addition of more highly profitable extension rooms.