This is truly heartbreaking.
Jamie Oliver has had a really rough year. After the closure of many of his restaurants, it’s hard to imagine where he could go from here. But, in true Jamie Oliver style, he has a truly great attitude about the whole thing.
The last few years haven’t been easy on Jamie Oliver.
At his peak, Jamie Oliver had three restaurant chains: Fifteen, Jamie’s Italian, and Barbecoa.
The franchises comprised of over 50 restaurants in 8 countries, all owned by the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group.
Fifteen was his most famous group.
Fifteen was both a series of restaurants and a foundation. It was the center of his show, Jamie’s Kitchen , where 15 disadvantaged youth competed to be offered jobs at the restaurant.
Jamie’s Italian was his biggest chain.
Like, 42 restaurants in the UK alone level big.
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It eventually branched into the UAE, Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, Russia, Turkey, Singapore and Hong Kong.
The Australian restaurant went bankrupt in 2016.
And Barbecoa made up the rest.
Barbecoa was a barbecue restaurant (obviously) that I low-key wish I’d been able to eat at.
There were 4 of them prior to 2019. They went into administration — which means an administrator was put in charge of liquidating their assets to pay off their debts — in 2018.
All three chains are now under administration.
Over 20 restaurants are now closed in the UK. 1,000 jobs have been lost in the closure, including those at Fifteen.
It took him 13 years to build his restaurant empire.
He recently opened up about it.
“It was 13 years of hard work and Fifteen was my baby, but I ran out of money, ran out of everything and it was really tough,” he revealed in an upcoming appearance on The Graham Norton Show .
He’s still able to look at the upside of things.
“But you have to crack on and try to get yourself together.”
You have to admire that level of resiliency from someone who initially set out to help disadvantaged kids out.
He appreciates his successes and failures.
“I’ve had the best of it – I don’t know anyone who had it better than me – and I’ve had the worst of it – that’s life. You have to focus it to a positive.”
Graham asked if he’d open new restaurants.
“Absolutely I’ll think about it, but not until after Brexit and after the high street has sorted itself out.”
He isn’t impressed with the way Britain has gone since the UK referendum.
A lot of business owners are hurting.
“If you run a business in this country, there has been no good news for anybody for five years. It’s been tough and there is a lot of mess to sort out.”
This isn’t a new opinion of his, either.
With less people on the streets shopping and more buying what they need online, restaurants aren’t seeing nearly the foot traffic they used to on high street.
Jamie also thought a version of gentrification was at play.
He blamed the referendum above all.
After the referendum, “The world changed, the high street changed — it started to become Uber -fied — our competitors changed, and we looked less different to them as we did in the beginning.”
He also thinks Brexit is to blame.
“Then, when there’s that chain reaction, throw a bit of Brexit in, say the B word, confidence goes and people’s habits changed.”
He basically thought people didn’t eat at restaurants anymore.
Jamie tweeted about it back in May.
At that same time, he gave a statement to the BBC:
“I appreciate how difficult this is for everyone affected. I would also like to thank all the customers who have enjoyed and supported us over the last decade, it’s been a real pleasure serving you.”
You can now catch his episode.
He’ll be joined by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, as well as David Mitchell and Kesha.
Man, that is going to be one interesting episode.