Scottish sites hit as Prezzo takes axe to 46 restaurants amid soaring costs

Two Scottish sites are among 46 restaurants being closed by Prezzo after the chain was hit hard by soaring costs and changes to customer habits.

The Italian restaurant group said the closures, which will affect 810 workers in total, and include sites in Livingston and St Vincent Place, Glasgow, come after utility costs rocketed by more than double. It said the shake-up will impact a raft of sites where footfall is still below pre-pandemic levels and leave more restaurants in busier shopping destinations such as retail parks or tourist hot-spots.

Bosses at the private equity-owned business said the cuts, which are part of a broader strategic review, will affect sites where “the post-Covid recovery has proved harder than we had hoped”. It will leave the chain with 97 restaurants and about 2,000 staff.

Prezzo said it will work to redeploy “as many staff internally as possible” and will support others in new opportunities. The group said costs have leapt over the past year, with its utility bills more than doubling. It has also been impacted by soaring food inflation, with Prezzo witnessing a 40 per cent increase in the cost of spaghetti, for example.

Chief executive Dean Challenger said: “The last three years have been some of the hardest times I have ever seen for the high street and I’m extremely proud of the way our colleagues have retained Prezzo’s position as an appealing, trusted, great value food and drink experience. But the reality is that the cost-of-living crisis, the changing face of the high street and soaring inflation has made it impossible to keep all our restaurants operating profitably.”