Closing date for Basingstoke Spruce Goose Beefeater

Last orders are being called at Basingstoke’s Spruce Goose Beefeater, which will serve its final customers after dinner service on Thursday, September 10, as part of a nationwide shutdown of the chain.

Parent company Whitbread has now set firm timetables for all 106 Beefeater restaurants to close, bringing the curtain down on the 52-year-old brand.

The steakhouse-style pub and restaurant at Basingstoke Leisure Park will shut as Whitbread exits all of its remaining branded eateries, including Brewers Fayre, Bar + Block, Table Table and Cookhouse + Pub.

Brewers Fayre sites will close after dinner service on September 7, while the other chains are due to disappear on September 3, affecting around 200 venues in total across the UK.

Outside Beefeater's Spruce Goose in Basingstoke (Image: Kimberley Barber)

Spruce Goose, off Worting Road, was previously listed among Beefeater restaurants earmarked to go as part of the overhaul, but without a confirmed final trading date.

The Gazette reported in April that the long-established family restaurant "could close" after Whitbread first announced plans to withdraw from the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre brands.

Whitbread says the closures are part of a five-year strategy to cut costs by around £250 million and reshape the business as a "pure-play" hotel operator centred on its Premier Inn brand.

The group plans to add thousands of new rooms by converting many of its restaurant buildings, targeting a total of about 96,000 hotel rooms by its 2031 financial year, up from roughly 86,600 at present.

Around 3,800 roles in the UK and Ireland are expected to go under the restructuring, although Whitbread has stressed it will try to redeploy a significant proportion of staff into other parts of the business.

The company recruits about 15,000 people a year and has said it hopes to retain many affected workers in new hotel or integrated restaurant roles where possible.

The Spruce Goose trades alongside the Premier Inn at the leisure park and has long been a familiar stop for families, hotel guests and cinema-goers heading to the nearby attractions.

It markets itself as a family-friendly steakhouse serving pub classics and drinks, with a large beer garden and free parking tied in with the hotel and leisure offer on the site.

Whitbread has not given site-by-site detail on how individual restaurants, including the Spruce Goose, will be treated once the doors close in September.

Options across the estate include converting space into extra Premier Inn rooms, selling buildings on as going concerns under new ownership, or disposing of surplus sites entirely.

In a guest information notice published in June, Whitbread emphasised that its branded restaurants "are open and trading and continue to welcome guests across the UK," after some online reports wrongly suggested venues had already shut.

The firm said it was sharing the update specifically because some artificial intelligence sources were incorrectly reporting early closures following the April announcement.