A UK pub chain backed by a 'Ready Steady Cook' chef will shut within the next few days with near 4,000 jobs having been lost.
On September 10 - in two days - all 106 Beefeaters pub-restaurants will close, including four in the North East.
The closing sites include Broomside Park, The Talpore, Whitley Bay and Morton Park.
The owner of the chain, Whitbread, made the announcement earlier this summer, while revealing that its 89 Brewers Fayre sites would be closing as well.
These pubs include branches in Durham, Stockton-on-Tees, North Tyneside, Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool and Sunderland, which shut yesterday (Monday, September 7), with the moves part of a wider restructuring plan enacted by Whitbread.
The company also owns the Premier Inn hotel brand, with the process set to result in 3,800 jobs being lost, although it has said it is trying to retain as many staff as possible.
Beefeaters was founded in 1974 and at its height in the late 1990s had over 250 locations across the country.
In 1999, near its peak, celebrity chef Brian Turner was recruited to work with the brand on a series of 20 three to five-minute programmes on British food.
Beefeater brand marketing controller Deborah Cutler told Marketing Week at the time: “The appointment and forthcoming campaign give a new edge to our strategy.
"The sponsorship will focus on our Britishness and commitment to providing great British food.”
Mr Turner, now 80, appeared as a cook on numerous programmes including BBC 2's 'Ready Steady Cook' from 1994.
The highly-popular game show saw members of the public provide two celebrity chefs with a bag of ingredients - usually to a set budget of £5 - that they then had to make several dishes out of.
It was hosted by Fern Britton between 1994 and 2000, and Ainsley Harriott between 2000 and 2010.
Across the country, some Beefeater and Brewers Fayre eateries have already been switched over to Whitbread’s own in-house Thyme brand.
Others are being sold and closed with the cuts set to impact about 12 per cent of the company's 30,000-strong workforce in the UK and Ireland working in its restaurants.
A statement was issued on the restructuring earlier this year in which it was announced a number of the restaurants would be converted into additional Premier Inn rooms.
A spokesperson for Whitbread said: “We recognise the impact of this proposal on colleagues who work at the affected sites.
"As a business which recruits around 15,000 people every year, we expect to be able to retain a significant proportion of those affected and will be looking to redeploy as many of our impacted colleagues as possible.
"However, we do anticipate that the proposed changes, which are subject to consultation, would result in a reduction of around 3,800 roles of a total UK and Ireland workforce of around 30,000.
"We will do all we can to support those colleagues affected.”
Find the full list of Brewers Fayre and Beefeater sites closing in the North East here.
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