Restaurant chain suffering from a perception that is is 'just a steakhouse'

The Foxlow restaurant brand has had a "pretty tough time" last year, leading to a pre-tax loss for the company overall, its owner admitted.

The owners have closed the Foxlow branch in Stoke Newington, the first time they have ever closed a restaurant.

Foxlow which opened in Chiswick on the site of Sam's Brasserie, specialises in steaks, cocktails and brunches but according to an article in a trade publication The Caterer, the brand has not performed as well as the group's Hawksmoor steak chain.

This resulted in the Underdog Group being pushed into the red with a £9million pre-tax loss for the financial year ended 31 December 2016. The company is owned by Will Beckett and Huw Gott who acquired their Chiswick site from Sam Harrison.

The owners now appear to be rebranding and reshaping the menu in an effort to get away from the perception that Foxlow is basically a "steakhouse".

Will Beckett said in the article, “There may be some factors in the wider economy involved, but we think fundamentally we allowed the brand’s identity to drift from ‘a neighbourhood restaurant based on great British produce’ to ‘it’s a steakhouse’, which is never what we intended.

“This year we’ve spent huge amounts of time trying to get this right in all sorts of ways, from menu to branding, really going back to the original idea of a varied restaurant that focuses on locals and regulars and getting the pricing right. The results of that work are being felt now, with good like-for-like growth and what we think is a great restaurant at Soho.”

The directors are “confident about the future prospects of the group.”

Foxlow has branches in Chiswick, Balham, Clerkenwell and Soho. Hawksmoor has six branches in greater London and one in Manchester. The Chiswick restaurant was the third in the London stable of owners Will Beckett and Huw Gott.

After Sam's Brasserie closed, it was refurbished using reclaimed and vintage materials and offered a menu of charcoal-grilled steaks sourced from The Ginger Pig butchery, as well as seafood, smoked meats and salads.

The first Foxlow restaurant opened in Clerkenwell.

In an interview with Chiswickw4.com before it sopening co-owner Will Beckett talked about the move to Chiswick, which arose out of a conversation with Sam Harrison, who told him he was looking for a change, after his ten years in W4.

Will said then, "Foxlows are the restaurants we always wanted to open.  When we first opened Hawksmoor Spitalfields in 2006 it was a great independent neighbourhood restaurant that punched way above its weight because of the quality of food and drink. Eventually Hawksmoor set off on a different path, becoming big (and hopefully very good!) destination restaurants. 

"Obviously because people associate Hawksmoor with meat there’s always the question, ‘is Foxlow a steakhouse?’ Well, it certainly has steak – we buy meat, as we always have, from Tim Wilson from the Ginger Pig, predominantly Longhorn cattle from his amazing herd in North Yorkshire. 

"However, even Hawksmoor is more varied than ‘just steak’ – we often give equal weighting to seafood and have worked for years with Mitch Tonks, who we think is the best seafood chef in the country, and the dishes we serve are not just ‘steakhouse classics’. 

September 10, 2017