As a Child, a highlight of any long journey was a stop at one of the many Little Chefs that littered the roads.

So it was with sadness that over recent years we have witnessed the decline of the once-loved Little Chef and the closure of many of these roadside restaurants.

Enter Heston Blumenthal, the famed Chef of the pioneering Fat Duck and someone who seems to be able to run a kitchen without profanities crossing his lips.

It was his brief by stolid Little Chef Chief Executive Ian Pegler, (a man so in love with his own palette that he didn’t have the inability to communicate his message without spouting some clichéd board-room speak about ‘Blue Sky thinking,’) to transform Little Chef and to get diners back.

The result of this was an entertaining and enjoyable three-part mini-series, not dissimilar to the format used in Kitchen Nightmares by Gordon Ramsey.
1. Shots of famous chef in lovely surroundings;
2. Chef drives to see a failing restaurant;
3. Chef shocked by ingredients, inability to cook, décor and low numbers of customers;
4. Chef throws out old menu;
5. Chef introduces condensed menu, normally on a sheet of A4, with much improved ingredients;
6. Chef teaches cooks to cook, starting with someone who is an ultimate failure and after two weeks ends up being an inspirational chef (for other references see Jamie’s School Dinners.)
7. Chef redesigns restaurants. Invites lots of famous and/or local people for launch;
8. Launch goes well bar one hiccup, which isn’t that massive anyway;
9. Chef gets pat on back;
10. More shots of Chef driving back home.

The major obstacle for Heston was not turning a restaurant around, but battling with the bewildering Mr Pegler who quite clearly thought the only purpose for this series was to get PR coverage for Little Chef. His line about how he ‘could have chosen any celebrity chef’ was just one of many on-camera gaffs that showed his motivation was not to work with Heston or to improve food and restaurants, but to see profits go up with as little investment as possible. He was also so far out-of-touch with his customers you have to wonder when he was last even in one of his own restaurants.

Now PR is a great tool, at Blue Cherry we rave about it because we believe it works and we have the track record to back this up, with clients seeing sales shoot up due to our work, but PR must be used as part of a wider Marketing mix – there is no point in a PR stunt (like this one) that sees massive exposure if the ethics and board-room action do not back up what you’re saying.

Now if Pegler had of been likeable, better briefed, more enthusiastic (without the clichés) or had of genuinely wanted to see Little Chef change, improve and evolve then there is the chance that I would have been more optimistic about Little Chefs future.

At the moment people are visiting Little Chefs, profits will be up and the PR team at Little Chef must have been in full swing for weeks due to the coverage they have received. Sadly, the resurgence is due to Heston, not Little Chef.

In order to see continued success they must continue to invest in training, décor and ingredients across the chain. However, my faith in Pegler is such that I fear this will not happen, it appears that his eye is on rescuing the profit margins not resuscitating the brand (which would ultimately rescue his profit margins) and after a period of time Little Chef will see the dip again.

The question from here is whether the Little Chef board will take this opportunity to build or use this period to count coins, if it’s the later I fear we will shortly see the decline begin again and the slow-witted Pegler will turn to another gimmick to rescue the much-loved Little Chef – a chain that deserves better.

So was it good PR?
Yes, but ultimately the actions of the board need to reflect what their PR is saying, otherwise they will get bad PR.