{"id":945676,"date":"2026-05-08T08:34:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945676\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:34:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:34:39","slug":"huge-update-after-restaurant-giant-goes-into-administration-2-5m-injection-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945676\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge update after restaurant giant goes into administration – \u00a32.5m injection | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major UK fast food chain closing 23 restaurants across the UK has been saved by its founder. Leon <\/a>entered into administration in December last year, ahead of Christmas.<\/p>\n

Now, founder and owner John Vincent has saved the company through a \u00a32.5 million cash injection. Administrators BTG Begbies Traynor and Quantuma were appointed by Vincent to \u201clay out options for the future of the company.\u201d The owner said Leon will return to growth after a restructure, hoping to expand to 100 sites within four years. Administration came after LEon lost \u00a360 million in the five years after being taken over by the EG Group and integrating with Asda<\/a>. He told The Grocer<\/a> : \u201cI would like to thank everyone inside and outside Leon who has helped over the last few months as we have undergone a painful but necessary restructuring to secure the company\u2019s future. We have now reached the point where the company can exit administration and continue its rejuvenation as a smaller but more sustainable <\/a>company devoted to serving wonderful food to its customers<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of affection for Leon, and I am committed to working on behalf of our guests, teams and suppliers to make the company what people want it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking previously, Vincent said he now wants to run Leon \u201cas a family business, almost like running your own corner shop\u201d.<\/p>\n

He says the business will be fuelled by a \u201cfounder\u2019s mentality\u201d, pondering problems from the early hours of the morning to late at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average player in this market is going to go bankrupt,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only winners in this space, ultimately will outstrip everyone else on revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

He accused Labour of \u201ctaxing businesses to extinction\u201d and \u201ccreating the opposite of growth.\u201d The survival plan for Leon is to be \u201cmassively differentiated\u201d. \u201cLeon has to be niche: it can\u2019t be on every high street.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be the best food company in the world but don\u2019t want to be the biggest,\u201d he said at the time. Every Leon should be magical. I want to be a beacon of what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major UK fast food chain closing 23 restaurants across the UK has been saved by its founder.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[6580,51,13465,224195,63463,280,263991,16,15],"class_list":["post-945676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-administration","tag-business","tag-high-street","tag-john-vincent","tag-leon","tag-restaurants","tag-u00a32-5-million-cash-injection","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116538039974343209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}