Tasty considering some site sales and rebrands

Tasty, owner and operator of the Wildwood and Dim T restaurant brands, is considering the sale or rebranding of some of its sites.

In the group’s annual results to 25 December 2022, chairman Keith Lassman said that the conversion of its Wildwood restaurant in Loughton into a Dim T last November had “exceeded expectation” and that the company was considering “other opportunities to rebrand within our estate”.

Of the business’ 54 sites, 52 are currently trading. Lassman said the group was looking to sell the two that remained closed and was considering the sale or surrender of “other underperforming sites”.

For the year, Tasty reported revenue of £44m, an increase of 26% year-on-year, and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £2.6m, compared to £8m the prior year.

Transport strikes, the World Cup and bad weather towards the end of last year were estimated to have cost the business more than £650,000, on top of inflationary labour, food and utilities costs, which impacted the business “considerably”, but were beginning to stabilise. As a result, the company saw a loss after tax of £6.4m, compared to a £1.2m profit in 2021.

The group said that expansion plans would be reviewed once inflation and the economy stabilised, and expansion and major refurbishments would not be considered until the second half of the year.

Tasty also repaid and cancelled its unutilised £1.1m Barclays loan and was debt free with cash at bank of £7m at the end of the year.

Lassman added that he believed a “better than expected” sales performance at the start of 2023 was partially due to customers continuing to make use of savings acumulated during the pandemic, offering some resilience to menu price increases, “however, whether this resilience continues, remains to be seen in the coming months”. The board expected the group's profitability to continue to be impacted by both increasing energy and food costs.