Giraffe is a restaurant chain headquartered in Birmingham, England, which was founded in 1998 in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

as Giraffe Restaurants by Juliette Joffe, Russel Joffe and Andrew Jacobs. Giraffe was owned by its founders, with additional financial backing from private shareholders, 3i investment group and chairman Luke Johnson. In October 2006, 3i invested £10 million in the company in a deal that valued the chain at £24 million. It was announced in March 2013 that the chain was to be acquired by Tesco for £48.6m. As part of the acquisition, 3i and Risk Capital Partners sold their shares in the company. In June 2016, Tesco reached an agreement to sell the company to Boparan Holdings.

Branches

Giraffe, Trinity Leeds opening day (21st March 2013)

As of August 2022, the company has 17 outlets across the United Kingdom plus three at Dubai Airport in the United Arab Emirates and two at Malaga Airport in Spain. In September 2016, the company introduced a new brand, Giraffe World Kitchen, with its first branch in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

. However, in March 2019, Boparan announced that 20 branches had been tagged for closure “to protect the company”, which had made a pre-tax loss of £10m on sales of £67m.

References

External links

* * {{Tesco , state=expanded Restaurant groups in the United Kingdom 3i Group companies Restaurants established in 1998 1998 establishments in the United Kingdom