Why Did Chef Jamie Oliver’s Restaurants Close? Inside His Restaurant Group

Celebrity chefs have multiple ways to build their food empires, such as television appearances, cookbooks, food tours, and, of course, restaurants. However, some chefs are hit with the reality that despite a well-known name, their businesses can still fail, such as U.K. celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

Jamie rose to fame in 1997 with the debut of his popular BBC culinary series, The Naked Chef. Dozens of restaurants followed, and Jamie is second only to J.K. Rowling for being the highest-selling author, with almost 15 million cookbook sales. So why did his restaurants close?

In 2019, when all but three of his 25 restaurants in the U.K. closed, Jamie said that he wasn’t exactly sure what happened to cause the collapse of his restaurants but speculated that a variety of factors played a part.

The famed chef said that while he “honestly didn’t know” the cause, "a perfect storm" of "rents, rates, the high street declining, food costs, Brexit, (and) increase in the minimum wage" were the likely culprits, according to The New Zealand Herald.

In 2018, prior to the restaurants’ closures, Jamie shared the details of why he had to financially bail out his businesses. "We had simply run out of cash," he told the Financial Times, per The New Zealand Herald. "We hadn't expected it. This is just not normal in any business. You have quarterly meetings. You do board meetings. People supposed to manage that stuff should manage that stuff."

Jamie shared his thoughts on the collapse of restaurants shortly after the news went public. “I appreciate how difficult this is for everyone affected,” he said, according to The Guardian.

“We launched Jamie’s Italian in 2008 with the intention of positively disrupting mid-market dining in the UK high street, with great value and much higher quality ingredients, best-in-class animal welfare standards and an amazing team who shared my passion for great food and service. And we did exactly that,” Jamie said at the time.

Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group included his 22 Jamie’s Italian restaurants, the Fifteen and Barbecoa restaurants in London, and Jamie’s Diner at Gatwick airport.

The restaurant mogul is currently featured in Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Legends, the series that takes an in-depth look into renowned chefs who have managed to elevate their careers to legendary status.

Jamie also launched his 10 Skills Food Education platform in the U.S. on April 28. The program uses lesson plans to teach middle school and high school students healthy eating.

"10 Skills is trying to create amazing recipes, pictures, videos, competitions, environments, teacher plans, student plans, make it really easy for teachers or any club that wants to get kids cooking,” Jamie told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

“We are really trying to make it, not just like, ‘Oh, it's cooking, it's a luxury,’ but actually a necessity. 10 Skills just feels like part of the same narrative, which is, the next generation love, enthusiasm,” he said.