The Restaurant Group, which owns Wagamama and Frankie & Benny’s, is to close all 60 Chiquito sites for good, with some 1,500 jobs likely to be affected.
The majority of Chiquito restaurants will close permanently as TRG has announced the chain has fallen into administration.
TRG said it would also permanently close its Food and Fuel chain of pubs in London.
A TRG spokesman said, “Covid-19 has had an immediate and significant impact on trading across the Group.
“We have conducted a review of the performance of our business divisions, with a particular focus on the expected future cash generation profile of each of our business units.”
He added that both groups are expected to hit losses this year, “as a result, the Group has taken the very difficult decision to appoint administrators for Food & Fuel Limited and filed a notice of intention to appoint an administrator for Chiquito Limited.
'The decisions have been incredibly difficult and we recognise the significant impact on all of our colleagues that are affected. We thank them for their hard work and commitment during these very testing times.'
The news comes less than a week after the group reported that sales plummeted 12.5% over two weeks.
