Famous Red Neon Tourist Lure Angus Steakhouse Is Closing Flagship Restaurant

The flagship Piccadilly Circus branch of the red neon tourist magnet Angus Steakhouse has been put up for sale. It comes three months after the chain, which is perhaps the most famous London restaurant unfrequented by Londoners, was reported to be on the brink of collapse.

Today, 17 June, Big Hospitality reports that the enormous, 8,000 square foot, three-storey site on Coventry Street is listed with property agent Savills​​ at a cool £1.46 million annual rent. The site sits at what some would call the very centre of London, intersecting some of its busiest, most trodden, and famous streets.

In March, it was revealed that the Gateshead-based hospitality and leisure group Noble Organisation, which owns Angus Steakhouse, had appointed the financial services company KPMG to seek a “daily rate of rent rather than a quarterly one,” such were the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the business’s revenue and cashflow.

Moreover, the Guardian reported that the group had been on a downward trajectory before the pandemic closed dining rooms, with accounts showing an operating profit of £373,000 in 2018, down from £1.7 million in 2017.

Angus Steakhouse was founded in the 1960s and in its 70s and 80s prime — then considered a fashionable place to eat — operated 14 restaurants in the capital. By 2002, there were 21, but in 2021 it is left with five sites, aimed squarely at the tourist and occupying prime real estate in Leicester Square, Paddington, and Oxford Circus. Despite the group’s reported woes, all five restaurants reopened for diners when the restrictions on indoor dining were lifted on 17 May.

• Angus Steakhouse’s Piccadilly flagship put on market [Big Hospitality]