He's been slimmed down, fattened back up again and placed under the care of celebrity pal Heston Blumenthal, but now "Charlie", the symbol of Little Chef, will be disappearing from 67 locations across the country, putting up to 600 jobs at risk. The private equity owners of the 54-year-old roadside restaurant chain shut 18 loss-making outlets on Wednesday and will close another 49 next month. Graham Sims, Little Chef's chairman, said the closing stores were "losing money to a very large degree" and had to be shut to allow the remaining 94 sites to survive. He said the 18 restaurants boarded up on Wednesday were losing "in excess of £10,000 a year before rent" and had "dragged down" the rest of the company. The closure programme comes five years after the turnaround specialist RCapital rescued Little Chef – and 3,500 jobs – from administration. Since then, the company has tried to reposition itself away from its greasy-spoon image by drafting in the Michelin-starred Blumenthal to jazz up the menu. Blumenthal's Big Chef Takes On Little Chef was a hit for Channel 4, but his new menu – including coq au vin and braised ox cheeks – only made it in full to three restaurants. Blumenthal, who collects a "minimal fee" for his help, will be kept on to advise the chain about menu ideas and food provenance. Sims said the three restaurants transformed by Blumenthal "probably wouldn't have survived" without the celebrity chef's intervention. Sims, whose first job was flipping hamburgers at Little Chef in 1997 before he rejoined the company in the top job three months ago, said the chain was struggling because it had not been "aggressive" enough. "The problem is Little Chef has in the past never been brave enough to make a big change. I don't want to nibble at it any more – I want to make big changes." He said Little Chef, which began life as an 11-seat restaurant in Reading in 1958, would have to "shrink to grow". He said it was also finally time for Charlie to face up to competition from other, faster, alternatives up and down Britain's motorways. But he did not seem to be daunted by the fight ahead. "I used to run BP in the UK and created BP Connect and the BP Wild Bean Café," he said. "Now I'm going to start attacking BP. I will compete with those other restaurants and fast-food brands. This is a great opportunity for the great travelling British public." Grab-and-go takeaway, which is already available at 13 Little Chefs, will be rolled out across the rest of the network this year, but Sims insists it will be "quality quickly takeaway" not "just a dirty greasy takeaway". At the same time, Little Chef will keep its favourite dishes, including the Olympic Breakfast, which continues to go down well with its 9 million annual sit-down customers – including Sims, who eats at least one a week and recommends customers "don't eat the day before". "I have very big aspirations to grow our business," Sims said. "There are sites that I can comfortably invest in and see more jobs." After that, there are plans for a new franchise operation of 40-50 new restaurants. But there are no plans to expand to other countries yet.
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