In September 2017, Jamie Oliver received the kind of phone call that causes the bottom to fall out of your world – if not, in a moment of vertiginous panic, the world to fall out of your bottom. While filming for Channel 4’s Friday Night Feast with the actor Liv Tyler, he was told that his debt-ridden Jamie’s Italian chain was about to collapse. “I had two hours to put money in and save it or the whole thing would go to shit. It was as dramatic as that,” Oliver told the Financial Times.
This week, the worst finally happened. Despite a raft of closures and the loss of 600 staff, despite Oliver ploughing in £13m and a £37m loan from HSBC, almost all of Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group – which comprised 23 Jamie’s Italian venues and London’s Fifteen and Barbecoa – went into administration. In October, the group was reportedly paying off its final creditors as part of a voluntary arrangement meant to stave off this catastrophe. In its company filings, CEO Jon Knight was optimistic. “The quality of Jamie’s Italian offer, [its] food and healthy ethos sets it apart from the competition,” he reported.
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