Common Table Group, a new hospitality business, is buying 57 former Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Cookhouse restaurants from Whitbread, together with one Premier Inn hotel. The deal was reported on 7 October 2026, with the first reopenings planned from mid-November and 700 new jobs promised, alongside staff transferring across from Whitbread.
Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn, is the seller, and the price has not been disclosed. The buyer is led by managing director Thomas Anderson, who also runs Rodeo Group, the operator of 15 Rodeo Doughnut sites in London and Manchester. The coverage names no backers and does not explain why Whitbread is selling these restaurants. It also does not say whether the sites are trading today or currently closed, so the starting point for the reopening programme is not yet clear.
What the deal covers
The package is made up of 57 restaurants that traded under three Whitbread brands, plus one Premier Inn hotel. Common Table Group plans to invest in refurbishing the restaurants, developing its people and creating new menus, and it intends to introduce a speciality barista coffee offer under the Rodeo name, taken from the doughnut business that Anderson also leads, a format several coffee brands recruiting UK operators have built around.
The coverage calls them former restaurants and does not say whether the Beefeater, Brewers Fayre or Cookhouse names will continue, or whether the sites will trade under new identities. It also does not list the individual sites, so the spread of the estate across England, Scotland and Wales cannot be confirmed.
Jobs and the transfer of Whitbread teams
The deal is described as creating 700 new hospitality jobs, in addition to team members who transfer from Whitbread. No breakdown by site or by role is given, the number of transferring colleagues is not stated, and no timetable is set for when the new roles will be advertised.
Thomas Anderson, managing director of Common Table Group, said the priority is to get the sites back open and trading as soon as possible, and that the group is “building an entrepreneurial business with a local feel”, where teams are empowered to make decisions and shape each venue around its community.
What the coverage leaves out
The purchase price, the identity of any backers, the list of individual sites and Whitbread’s reasons for selling are not given. Nor is it clear whether the new business will own, lease or franchise the sites.
What comes next
The first reopenings are targeted from mid-November 2026, which puts the first trading results some weeks away. Only a start date is given, not a schedule for all 58 properties, so the pace of the wider programme remains open. No end date is given for the refurbishments either, so the date by which all 58 properties are trading is unknown.
Updates on site names, refurbishment budgets and recruitment would come from Common Table Group directly, and a new business of this kind would normally publish its first accounts through Companies House in due course. Rodeo Group’s sites in London and Manchester are the only operating track record the coverage attaches to Anderson’s team, a shorter history than most brands taking on operators in the UK can show.
