Pub restaurant in Burgess Hill closes to visitors as Premier Inn takes over

A spokesperson for Whitbread PLC confirmed that The Acorn Beefeater in Charles Avenue had its last day of operation on Thursday, July 4.

They said: “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the local community for their support over the years and our amazing team members.”

The company recently told customers via email that The Acorn would change to a Premier Inn restaurant and would only provide service to guests staying at the hotel from Friday, July 5.

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In April Whitbread said it planned to replace roughly 112 of its ‘lower-returning branded restaurants’ with ‘integrated restaurants’ over the next 24 months, while using the space to ‘add new higher returning hotel rooms’.

The company added that, so far in this financial year, the ‘branded restaurants’ had generated an adjusted loss before tax of £19m.

Whitbread CEO Dominic Paul said: “Our significant freehold estate and strong balance sheet mean we are in a unique position to be able to add 3,500 new hotel rooms and meet the strong demand we are seeing from guests around the country, whilst continuing to offer a great breakfast and dinner at all of our hotels. This plan is a further positive step, delivering a better experience for our hotel guests and helping to extend our market leadership in the UK.”

He said the company would work hard to allow as many of those affected as possible to stay with Whitbread by either ‘transferring into roles’ that the plan will create or by ‘taking up other vacancies across the business more broadly’.