Industry | Hospitality |
---|---|
Founded | 1983 |
Founder | Courage Brewery |
Headquarters | 27 Fleet Street, Birmingham |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | CEO Phil Urban |
Products | 230 restaurants |
Parent | Mitchells & Butlers |
Website | www |
Harvester is a casual dining restaurant chain in the United Kingdom. The first, The George Inn, opened in 1983 in Morden, South London. The chain, set up by Courage Brewery to compete with Whitbread's Beefeater restaurants and Grand Metropolitan's Berni Inns, [1] is currently run by Mitchells & Butlers.
Courage Brewery, who were owned by Imperial Tobacco had expanded the Harvester brand by converting 70 sites. Imperial were purchased by Hanson Trust plc in 1986, and Courage was sold as part of Hanson's divestment of Imperial's non tobacco interests, with the company being purchased by Elders Limited, the Australian brewer of Foster's Lager. Elders sold the Harvester brand onto Trusthouse Forte. [1]
On 21 July 1995, Bass bought the seventy eight restaurants of Harvester for £165 million from the Forte Group. [2] Whitbread had offered £150 million to acquire the chain. [2] Most Harvesters were in the South East, and Bass had plans to rebrand other restaurants (such as the former Innkeeper's Fayre) elsewhere in England as Harvesters. When Bass divested its brewing division in 2000, the chain was looked after by the renamed company, Six Continents, until 2003. [3]
On 15 April 2003, Six Continents was demerged into Intercontinental Hotels Group to operate the hotels, and Mitchells & Butlers, for pubs and restaurants which had 127 outlets. [4]
In 2006, Mitchells & Butlers acquired 239 standalone Brewers Fayre and Beefeater sites without a Premier Inn or where planning permissions for Premier Inn could not be obtained from Whitbread. These sites were converted into Harvester, Toby Carvery and other pub/restaurant brands. In 2008, it bought 44 more standalone Beefeater and Brewers Fayre sites, in exchange for 21 Express by Holiday Inn hotels. [5]
For the first time in ten years, Harvester Restaurants spent nearly £20,000 on advertising on both television in the United Kingdom, and radio stations in July 2010. The advertising campaign was part of a general shift within Mitchells & Butlers, to focus on businesses that were food led. [6] As part of the marketing campaign, they also run "free ice cream vouchers when you order main meal" campaigns periodically.[ citation needed ]
Holiday Inn is a chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson (1913–2003), who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee. The chain was a division of Bass Brewery from 1988-2000, Six Continents from 2000-03, and IHG Hotels & Resorts since 2003. It operates hotels under the names Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, and Holiday Inn Resorts. As of 2018, Holiday Inn has hotels at over 1,100 locations.
Bass Brewery was founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK. By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with an annual output of one million barrels. Its pale ale was exported throughout the British Empire, and the company's red triangle became the UK's first registered trade mark.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), marketed as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Windsor, Berkshire, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It is also a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Whitbread is a British multinational hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742 by Samuel Whitbread in partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell, with premises in London at the junction of Old Street and Upper Whitecross Street, along with a brewery in Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Samuel Whitbread bought out his partners, expanding into porter production with the purchase of a brewery in Chiswell Street, and the company had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
Morland was a brewery in Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, and the second oldest brewer in England, until it was bought by Greene King in 2000. Morland's beers include Hen's Tooth, Old Speckled Hen, Tanner's Jack and Morland's Original.
A carvery is a pub or a restaurant where cooked meat is freshly sliced to order for customers, sometimes offering unlimited servings in a buffet style for a fixed price. The term is most commonly used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Australia.
All Bar One is a chain consisting of 56 bars in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by Mitchells and Butlers plc which was part of the Six Continents group until 2003.
Six Continents was a large British-based hotel and hospitality business which was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Mitchells & Butlers plc runs circa 1,784 managed pubs, bars and restaurants throughout the United Kingdom. The company's headquarters are in Birmingham, England. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Vaux Brewery was a major brewer and hotel owner based in Sunderland, England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was taken over by Whitbread in 2000.
Crest Hotels Limited was a Bass-Charrington subsidiary operating the hotel interests of the brewery company in the United Kingdom. Crest's headquarters were in the former Hunt Edmunds brewery premises in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
Brewers Fayre is a licensed pub restaurant chain, with 161 locations across the UK as of August 2018. Owned by Whitbread, Brewers Fayre restaurants are known for serving traditional British pub food and for their Sunday Carvery.
Premier Inn Limited is a British limited service hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with more than 800 hotels, with over 72,000 rooms. It operates hotels in a variety of locations including city centres, suburbs and airports, competing with the likes of Travelodge and Ibis hotels. The company was established by Whitbread as Travel Inn in 1987, to compete with Travelodge. Whitbread bought Premier Lodge in July 2004 and merged it with Travel Inn to form the current business under the name Premier Travel Inn, which was then shortened to the current name in October 2007. Premier Inn accounts for 70% of Whitbread's earnings.
Beefeater is a chain of over 140 pub restaurants in the United Kingdom, owned by Whitbread.
Forte Group plc was a British hotel and restaurant company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Granada in 1996. Its head office was in the London Borough of Camden.
Taybarns was a British low cost all-you-can-eat restaurant chain owned by Whitbread, modelled on the Golden Corral chain in the United States. Customers paid on arrival and could eat as much food as they liked from a 34-metre-long food counter. As with most buffets, there was a lower price at lunchtime than evenings, and a slightly higher charge was levied at weekends and during bank holidays.
Toby Carvery is a British carvery chain brand owned and operated by Mitchells & Butlers, which consists of 158 restaurants.
The hospitality industry in the United Kingdom is largely represented by the country's hotels, pubs, restaurants and leisure companies, and produces around 4% of UK GDP.