Jamie Oliver has spoken candidly about the failure of his restaurant business, explaining that he made fundamental errors because he sometimes struggles with practical details.
In May 2019, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver had to shut down 22 of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants, resulting in 1,000 people losing their jobs. The closures happened after the business experienced a significant drop in profits and accumulated around £83 million in debt before going bankrupt.
Jamie recently shared on Davina McCall’s Begin Again podcast that he found it difficult to cope with setbacks, explaining that a weakness in math contributed to his struggles.
He reflected that he’d often succeeded in complex tasks but stumbled on simple ones, realizing this stemmed from a lifelong avoidance of dealing with numbers and math. He admitted he hadn’t done well in math during school.
‘Conceptually within that, yeah I’m thick. I have a negative view of myself when it comes to maths.
When I lost my restaurants, it was tough, but we had already mastered the most challenging aspects of the business – the fundamentals that many others find difficult. We had a strong handle on the core elements.
Jamie continued: ‘Like, we were really good at the hard stuff. And like, it was really the basics.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I realize I was holding myself back. I used to beat myself up, thinking I was just no good at certain things. But now I see that wasn’t true. I can actually improve and get better – I just needed to recognize that and start working on it. It’s about retraining myself, not accepting defeat.
Jamie also revealed that he no longer sees failure as a negative.
He thought perhaps he was just trying to rationalize things, but he believed that experiencing pain and failure actually broadens your perspective and sharpens your awareness.
You know, I truly believe that even if things didn’t turn out as planned, it doesn’t necessarily mean you *failed*. It just means your approach might need adjusting – it wasn’t about being completely off-track, but perhaps needing a different direction. I always try to remember that.
I’ve experienced failure both by acting too soon, before others were prepared, and by waiting too long.
Jamie’s Italian restaurant chain experienced a particularly public and significant closure during a year that saw many restaurants across the UK go out of business.
As a lifestyle expert, I’ve seen a lot of restaurant groups rise and fall, and it was really tough to watch what happened with this chef’s businesses. When his restaurant group, including Fifteen and Barbecoa, went into administration, it sadly meant over 20 of his restaurants had to close their doors.
Jamie reportedly used his own money to pay the final wages of around 1,000 employees who have lost their jobs.
Oh my gosh, it absolutely *destroyed* me watching Jamie revisit Fifteen, his first restaurant in East London, back in August 2019. It was for this documentary, ‘Jamie Oliver: The Naked Chef Bares All’, and seeing him so emotional about the place he poured his heart and soul into back in 2002… I just lost it! It was like watching a piece of his history, and it was so raw and real. I’ve watched it like, a million times.
He admitted his mistakes, saying he was inexperienced and lacked the knowledge needed to run a successful business.
After facing a setback, he announced his return to the restaurant industry in 2022 with a new food delivery service, confidently stating, ‘We’re not giving up!’
The TV personality addressed the recent and difficult failure of his restaurant chain, calling it a painful setback, but ultimately a learning experience that has made him stronger. He described it as a temporary problem in the larger scope of his goals.
It’s been an incredible 13 years, full of learning and growth. I started out young and inexperienced, but now I’m much older and have gained a lot of wisdom.
When asked if he’d taken anything away from the failure of his Italian restaurants, the TV personality replied that he definitely had, along with lessons from roughly half of all his other business ventures.
‘But I’ve never been more rounded, I’ve never been more experienced.’
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2025-09-18 11:49