Antony Worrall Thompson: Closes Four Restaurants

By JULIETTE ROSSANT 2009 might well be the year of discount gourmet food, but the credit crunch is hitting some celebrity chefs with a knockout punches. Antony Worrall Thompson, a TV chef and restaurateur in the UK has been forced to close four of his six restaurants, while his company goes into receivership. According to The Telegraph: The 57-year-old said he had to use his own savings of £250,000 to buy back his two other restaurants and a shop from the administrators... The closures follow reports that rival Gordon Ramsay has a business overdraft of £10.5 million and was fined for failing to file accounts on time for his own multi-million-pound empire. Mr. Worrall Thompson told The Mail on Sunday how the demise of his business AWT Restaurants and the loss of jobs had left him in tears. He said: "It makes me cry. It is just appalling. I am furious, to be honest, that the banks didn't support me." He added that the Lloyds Banking Group refused to extend his company's overdraft by the £200,000 he needed to keep all six restaurants going. Have chefs over-expanded on easy credit? Or has the economy gone south so quickly that good deals are spoiled, while bank credit dries up? Whatever the case, no only the celebrity chefs are hurting – cooks, front-of-the-house, and managers are all loosing their jobs. Previous articles: From Gordon Ramsay to Mark Sullivan's Spruce Restaurant Are British Super Chefs Richer Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks, cookbook reviews, Anthony Worrall Thompson --> back to Super Chef