Jamie Oliver is great at selling books – in 2017 he sold more books than any other author in any other category, in the UK and 4 other countries; but he hasn’t been as fortunate with his restaurants.

• In January 2016, six Jamie’s Italian restaurants were closed
• In March 2017, the last of his four ‘Union Jacks’ pizza restaurants closed
• In January 2018, it was announced that twelve additional Jamie’s Italian restaurants will close, as well as two Barbecoa steakhouse restaurants

25 of the UK restaurants remain…

The twelve 2018 closures are located in Bath, Bristol, Bluewater, Chelmsford, Greenwich, Harrogate, Kingston-upon-Thames, Milton Keynes, Piccadilly, Reading, St Albans and Threadneedle Street.

The two Barbecoa steakhouse restaurants are located at London Piccadilly and St. Paul’s

My Local – Milton Keynes

I’ve to the Milton Keynes restaurant about 10 times, that’s not a lot considering that I eat out lot, at a least once a week.

When it first opened, I went there with my brother and parents. The meal was okay, but not what at the level we expected it to be. Subsequent visits were better – the food was always good, the presentation was often quirky (e.g. ham on a board, aloft two baked bean tins). I have a Gold Club card (free to obtain), which gives me an extra something, such as a free taster – this is a nice touch. The thing that most impressed me about the restaurant was the staff – they are very knowledgeable on the food (more so than in any other restaurant I have been to) and explain everything to you when you are ordering and when the food is presented to you. Prices were reasonable, the atmosphere is alright, etc…

So overall, I guess the Milton Keynes restaurant fits into my ‘nice’ category – and this is the problem. There are a lot of ‘nice’ Italian chain restaurants in Milton Keynes (Ask, Bella Italia, Carluccios, Pizza Express, Strada, Zizzi, etc.) and Jamie’s Italian is the worst positioned and amongst the most expensive of these. Most of the other restaurants always have discounts (Taste Card, VoucherCloud, etc.), which is a real incentive when paying for 1-2 other family members, when the Jamie’s Italian restaurant offers little additional ‘enjoyment factor’. It doesn’t have enough of a Unique Selling Point for me to have the voice in my head scream “Go to Jamie’s”.

So how will the closure of the Milton Keynes Jamie’s Italian restaurant affect me? I may not have been there much and it isn’t the first Italian restaurant that comes to the front of my mind, but I will miss it… I like what it stands for – good quality food, good atmosphere, very knowledgeable staff and a something that ‘tries’ to stretch a bit beyond other Italian restaurants.

In terms of the future of the business, I like what Jamie says in this recent video – he is himself taking a degree in food nutrition and will be taking what he learns and putting it into his restaurants. He wants a third of the food on the menu to be very healthy, a third to be reasonably healthy and a third to be ‘indulgent’. I think most restaurants do this anyway… but it will be nice to see his revised take on it. I always long to have tasty, healthy food with a decent portion size – if he can achieve this, I will scream for him to bring Jamie’s Italian back to Milton Keynes!

Just a side-note. I have been to the Jamie’s Italian in Oxford a handful of times. This restaurant has a nice atmosphere and is much better placed in terms of location. I think that it’s quite possible that it’s the location that was the biggest failing of the Jamie’s Italian restaurant in Milton Keynes – it’s tucked away in the corner of the shopping centre, so easy to walk past without noticing and too far to walk to if you want a convenient place to eat before going to the cinema/theatre/bowling/snowboarding/gym.