Mon 22nd Jan 2018 - Jamie’s Italian confirms closure of 12 sites Jamie’s Italian confirms closure of 12 sites: Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group has confirmed it will close 12 Jamie’s Italian sites in the UK following a strategic review. The sites that will shut are Bath, Bristol, Bluewater, Chelmsford, Greenwich, Harrogate, Kingston-upon-Thames, Milton Keynes, Piccadilly Diner, Reading, St Albans and Threadneedle Street in London. The company said in a statement: “The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group has confirmed it is proposing to close 12 UK branches. It follows a strategic review to ensure the business is in good shape for the future. The remaining 25 sites in the UK will be unaffected by this decision and will continue to trade normally. This announcement does not affect Jamie’s Italian franchises managed through Jamie’s Italian International. The Jamie Oliver Media Group and the Jamie Oliver Licensing Group, which are both managed and run separately, are also unaffected.” The closures come on top of the six Jamie’s Italian closures announced a year ago. Those closures reduced the chain from 42 sites to 36 and another has shut since. This resulted in the company reporting a pre-tax loss of £9.9m compared with a profit of £2.4m the previous year after a one-off hit of £10.9m from the closures. The restaurant company was founded by Oliver and Gennaro Contaldo in Oxford in 2008. It grew rapidly into a chain of more than 60 restaurants worldwide and had plans to expand further, but recently it has begun to struggle and AlixPartners was hired in November to draw up a turnaround plan.