Wagamama (stylised as ''wagamama'') is a British

restaurant chain A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

, serving Asian food based on

Japanese cuisine Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan (Japanese: ) is based on rice with miso soup and other ...

History

The first Wagamama was opened in 1992 in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, London, founded by

Alan Yau Alan Yau (), Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 11 November 1962) is a Hong Kong restaurateur who founded the Wagamama chain in the United Kingdom. Of Hakka people, Hakka ancestry, he was born in Sha Tau Kok, Hong Kong and moved to King's Ly ...

, who subsequently created the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

restaurants

Hakkasan Hakkasan is a Chinese restaurant first opened in Fitzrovia in London, England but has since expanded to many cities worldwide. The restaurant was founded in 2001 by Alan Yau, who was also behind the Wagamama Japanese restaurants and later the ...

and

Yauatcha Yauatcha is a Chinese restaurant in Broadwick Street, Soho, London, England, specialising in dim sum. The restaurant was created in 2004 by Alan Yau, who previously created the Japanese Wagamama and Thai Busaba Eathai restaurant chains as ...

, and

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

restaurant Busaba Eathai. In June 2005, the restaurant's owner

Graphite Capital Graphite Capital is a private equity firm focused on mid-market leveraged buyout investments, primarily in the UK. The group manages around £1.2 billion for institutional investors, with the most recent fund raising over £500 million in 2018. ...

sold the majority stake of 77.5% to

Lion Capital LLP Lion Capital LLP is a British private equity firm specialising in investments in the consumer sector. Previous and current consumer brands owned by Lion have included Weetabix, Jimmy Choo, Wagamama, Kettle Foods and AllSaints. The firm is headq ...

for £103million. In April 2011, the chain was sold to

Duke Street Capital Duke Street is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies in Western Europe, particularly the UK and France. The firm which is based in London was founded in 1988 as Hambro Europe ...

, for an estimated sum of £215million. As of January 2014, the chain included over 190 restaurants, with 130 being in the United Kingdom. The chain was acquired for £559m by

The Restaurant Group The Restaurant Group plc is a British chain of restaurants and public houses. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. History The company was founded by Matthew Brown from Chatteris in 1987 as City Centre Restaurants plc with the objective of ...

, owner of

Frankie & Benny's Frankie & Benny's (now trading as Frankie's) is a chain of Italian-American-themed restaurants in the United Kingdom run by The Restaurant Group. , it had 90 outlets nationwide. History In 1924, at the age of 10, Frankie Giuliani left Sicily wit ...

& Chiquito in October 2018. Other restaurants are located in Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Gibraltar, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UAE, and the United States. A new restaurant has opened at the beginning of 2019 in France. Previous countries served by the Wagamama brand include Australia from 2002 to 2014, and New Zealand until 2019. Wagamama has released two cookbooks in order to further extend its brand. The first site on

Streatham Street Streatham Street is a street in the London district of Bloomsbury, running between New Oxford Street and Great Russell Street Great Russell Street is a street in Bloomsbury, London, best known for being the location of the British Museum. It ...

, Bloomsbury, London, closed permanently on 19 June 2016.

Brand

The word is Japanese for "self-indulgent", "self-centred", "disobedient", or "wilful" and is most often translated by the brand as "naughty child". Wagamama brands itself as following the process of kaizen.

News items

Environmental record

In November 2015, the chain was named by the

Marine Conservation Society The Marine Conservation Society is a UK based not-for-profit organization working with businesses, governments and communities to clean and protect the oceans. Founded in 1983, the group claims to be working towards "cleaner, better-protected, h ...

as one of seven restaurants surveyed that failed to meet a basic level of sustainability in its seafood. However, this was later retracted, as Wagamama revealed more information about the origin of its seafood.

Employment rights

In December 2017, Wagamama apologised after it was revealed some workers in Finchley were warned they would face disciplinary action if calling in sick over Christmas. The manager of the

North Finchley North Finchley is a suburb of London in the London Borough of Barnet, situated 7 miles (11 km) north-west of Charing Cross. North Finchley is centred on Tally Ho Corner, the junction of the roads to East Finchley, Church End, Friern Ba ...

branch asserted it was the responsibility of staff members, according to their contracts and handbook, to find somebody to cover their shifts. Wagamama said this was an isolated incident, not part of its employment policy.

Covid/quarantine losses

During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and subsequent quarantine, Wagamama parent company The Restaurant Group closed 250 restaurants, with a loss of nearly 4,500 jobs.

References

External links

Official UK website

Official US website
* {{Restaurants in London Restaurants established in 1992 Restaurants in London Restaurant groups in the United Kingdom Japanese cuisine Japanese restaurants Chinese community in the United Kingdom 1992 establishments in the United Kingdom Noodle restaurants