Giraffe World Kitchen


Giraffe is a restaurant and cafe chain based in Birmingham, England. founded in Hampstead as Giraffe Restaurants in 1998 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.
3i invested £10 million in the company in October 2006, in a deal that valued the chain at £24 million. On 13 March 2013, it was announced 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

The company has 39 outlets across the United Kingdom, including twelve in Greater London, plus four in the United Arab Emirates, and one in Spain. The company's first outlet in Scotland is in Aberdeen's shopping development, Union Square. A second opened at Silverburn Shopping Centre in Glasgow on 30 June 2014. In Autumn 2014, branches opened at Tesco stores in Bournemouth, Inverness and Poole.
It was announced in January 2016 that four restaurants will be closing or moving over to the café brand Tesco Family Dining. The four that closed were Silverburn, Newcastle, Poole and Swindon. It was further announced in March 2016 another seven restaurants would close, including those in York, Martlesham, Bournemouth and Sutton.
After selling Giraffe, Tesco announced the closure of all branches located within their stores. In September 2016, the company introduced a new brand, Giraffe World Kitchen, beginning with its branch in Basingstoke. Boparan announced in March 2019 that twenty branches had been tagged for closure "to protect the company", which had made a pre tax loss of £10m, on sales of £67m.