Jamie Oliver on Collapse of Restaurant Empire: Basics Went Wrong and He Battled Numbers Demons

Jamie Oliver has opened up about the collapse of his restaurant empire, saying the failure stemmed from getting the basics wrong and acknowledging a long-running struggle with numbers. In an interview tied to the Davina McCall podcast Begin Again, the celebrity chef confirmed that 22 Jamie's Italian locations were closed in May 2019, a move that contributed to the loss of about 1,000 jobs and left the business carrying roughly £83 million in debt when it went into administration.

Oliver described himself as conceptually thick when it came to mathematics, noting that while his teams were adept at the more complex tasks of running restaurants, the fundamental numbers and financial management were where the fault lines appeared. He said he spent years avoiding responsibility around numbers and maths, something he says he has since retrained himself to confront. He added that failures can occur both when a concept is ahead of its time and when timing is off, with some ventures failing because they were too early or too late.

The Jamie’s Italian cascade was one of the most high-profile collapses in a year that saw hundreds of restaurants across the United Kingdom shut doors. The Jamie Oliver brand at the time stretched beyond Italian dining to include other concepts such as Fifteen and Barbecoa; together, downturns across these outlets culminated in administration proceedings that shuttered more than a fifth of the network and affected thousands of staff.

Oliver has said he carried some of the responsibility for the failures and has described the period as a painful but formative chapter. He has since framed the experience as part of a broader learning curve, suggesting that the craft of cooking and brand-building can coexist with a more disciplined approach to finance. In late 2022, he signaled a return to the industry with a new food-delivery concept, emphasizing that the aim was to “go again” after the hard lessons of the prior decade.

The timeline of Jamie Oliver’s restaurant expansion and contraction underscores a rapid rise followed by a swift retrenchment. Jamie’s Italian opened in 2008, launching a chain that would shape much of Oliver’s public business profile. By 2017, the group faced a £20 million annual loss and closed 18 Italian sites, with debts around £71.5 million and significant borrowing from lenders; the founder injected savings to keep the operation afloat while additional loans were arranged. In 2018, 12 more Jamie’s Italian sites shuttered under a Company Voluntary Arrangement, while Barbecoa faced administration challenges that led to the closure of its Piccadilly location, with the St Paul’s site continuing under a new ownership structure. By 2019, all but three sites had closed after the administration process, and roughly 1,000 staff faced redundancy. The broader market context at the time reflected a difficult environment for mid- to high-end dining concepts, with consumer spending pattern shifts and rising costs pressuring many operators.

Oliver’s remarks on failure and resilience come as he recasts his business approach. He has repeatedly stated that the losses prompted a rethinking of how to balance creativity with financial discipline, and he has framed the experience as a turning point that left him more rounded and experienced. The 2022 plan to reenter the market through a delivery-focused model signals a renewed attempt to translate culinary branding into scalable, modern channels while avoiding past missteps. Observers will watch how a blended model—leveraging delivery and potential new formats—performs in a market that has since evolved with accelerated online ordering and shifting consumer preferences.

The episode of Begin Again in which Oliver reflects on these chapters places a single, persistent theme at the center of his narrative: failure, while painful, was also instructive. He emphasizes that learning from missteps, particularly in the realm of numbers and timing, is central to his current outlook. As Oliver positions a future in which food-service operations meet digital delivery, the industry will be watching whether his renewed approach can translate the chef’s long-running brand equity into sustainable growth in a market that remains highly competitive and dynamic.