Loch Fyne Seafood restaurant, City Square, Leeds

Loch Fyne Restaurants is a

chain A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. ...

of nine

seafood Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...

restaurants A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

owned and operated by Greene King plc.

History

The company takes its name from

Loch Fyne Loch Fyne ( gd, Loch Fìne, ; meaning "Loch of the Vine/Wine"), is a sea loch off the Firth of Clyde and forms part of the coast of the Cowal peninsula. Located on the west coast of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It extends inland from the Sound ...

, a

sea loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised sp ...

on the west coast of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. The business started life as part of

Loch Fyne Oysters Loch Fyne Oysters is a seafood and meat company that operates on the banks of Loch Fyne, Scotland. The company created the Loch Fyne Restaurants chain, which was later sold to Greene King. Loch Fyne Oysters still owns the Loch Fyne brand and suppl ...

but, in September 2006, the restaurant chain was bought by

Greene King Greene King is a large pub retailer and brewer. It is based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The company owns pubs, restaurants and hotels. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by CK Assets in October 2019. H ...

for £68 million. Loch Fyne Oysters continues in business under separate ownership; it owns the "Loch Fyne" brand and supplies much of the seafood used by the restaurant chain. In 2008 Loch Fyne Restaurants was reported by the BBC to be paying their

waiting staff Waiting staff (British English), waitstaff (North American English), waiters (male) / waitresses (female), or servers (North American English), are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attendi ...

a base salary below the minimum wage made up to legal levels by tips. Due to the

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

pandemic of 2020, Loch Fyne permanently closed 11 restaurants, including Norwich, Elton, Nottingham, Bath, Bristol, Egham, and Shrewsbury.

References

External links

* * Restaurant groups in the United Kingdom Seafood restaurants Oyster bars {{UK-restaurant-stub