I was initially going to write the headline ‘What next for Busaba Eathai?’ on hearing that the group had been bought out of administration, but that narrative seems to have followed the Thai restaurant group around for almost a decade. Our esteemed sister title MCA wrote ‘What now for Busaba?’ back in 2017, and three years later we did a deep dive into the business with an interview with then managing director Terry Harrison under the headline ‘Can Busaba bounce back?’ Now, five years on, people will be asking that question again, but this time of its new owner Seaco Investments.
Having called in administrator Leonard Curtis on 16 July, it was announced that Seaco Investments, a newly incorporated company controlled by finance professional Ronald Seacombe, had bought the seven-strong business, safeguarding around 240 jobs and ensuring the brand will continue to live on. It’s a move that marks yet another chapter in the colourful history of the Thai chain, and which comes after a challenging period for a brand that, at one time, had so much potential.
The rise and fall of Busaba is well documented. Launched in Soho by Wagamama founder Alan Yau in 1999, at its height it had 16 restaurants. In 2019 the group underwent a rebrand to celebrate its 20th anniversary and a year later it undertook a Company Voluntary Arrangement that saw it close a number of its sites. In more recent times it has made a number of attempts to reclaim some of its former glory, with an opening in Oxford that featured a new izakaya-inspired bar brand Ajia, billed at the time as Busaba’s ‘naughty little sister’, but both have since closed. In May last year there was talk of it trying out a new more vibey wet-led concept at its London Westfield Stratford site, although there is little evidence as to whether this actually happened. Today, Busaba operates just seven restaurants – six in London and one in Lakeside in Essex, all of which are open and still trading.
I, for one, have always been fascinated by Busaba and at times baffled by its inability to have conquered the casual dining sector in the same way that Wagamama, another Yau founded business, has. Like the early days of Wagamama, Busaba oozed style and sophistication and brought something fresh and cool to the under-served Thai restaurant sector in the UK – I remember the long queues outside the Wardour Street restaurant at its pomp with diners clamouring to bag one of its open window seats looking out onto Soho. Also, like Wagamama, the growth of the chain came after Yau’s departure in 2008 – as he did with the noodle chain, he laid the foundations for what should have been a successfully scaled Thai restaurant group that could serve all parts of the UK and possibly beyond. While I’m not sniffing at it reaching 16 sites, this figure feels inadequate for a brand with such obvious promise.
Consider Busaba’s early food credentials. By bringing in revered Thai chef David Thompson as consultant, Yau made a statement of intent with the kind of quality he was seeking with his brand. Thus, it started on a strong footing, one that no doubt helped it secure such a large sale price in 2008, when Phoenix Equity Partners handed over £21.5m when it had just three restaurants to its name.
I can’t help feeling that the large sum of money that was paid for Busaba became a millstone around the neck of the brand. In the next six years expansion was cautious, with an average of just over one new opening a year, and while this may be regarded as prudent it also failed to gather the sort of momentum required to turn a great concept into a well-recognised brand, one that justified its hefty price tag at least. A tough trading environment and the taking on of more and more debt - and then the tough Covid years - would eventually lead to Busaba’s downward spiral from which it has struggled to get free.
Under its new ownership, the brand will yet again have to prove whether it has the requisite bouncebackability, but the signs are that there is an opportunity to be had. The Thai food sector in the UK is experiencing a boom, led by a new wave Thai movement that has seen numerous Thai restaurants open across the capital and others start to open in Manchester and beyond. Places such as Speedboat Bar, which has just opened its second site, Kiln, Smoking Goat, Singburi, and Kolae have won plaudits for their more authentic, and often very spicy Thai dishes, and interest in the cuisine appears to be at an all-time high.
Then there’s the continued growth of Rosa’s Thai, the TriSpan-backed rival that has around 45 sites across the UK, and Giggling Squid, which has around 50 sites nationally. Both brands are proof that a Thai restaurant concept is scaleable, and not just in the capital.
Against this backdrop, will Busaba be able to ride this new wave of interest in Thai food and translate it into a more casual dining setting? If it does, it will be because Seacombe will have recognised that the conversation around Thai food in this country has moved on significantly over the past 25 years, that tastes have become more sophisticated and diners more willing to experience new flavours.
I - and presumable Seacombe does too - believe there is room for another truly national Thai food chain. One that offers a different approach, that taps into the current zeitgeist for authenticity rather than novelty, that doesn’t play up to trends or dampen flavours to try and be everything to all people, but which can translate that to a larger, more mainstream consumer. A brand that combines must-have modernity with tantalising tradition, in a way that Dishoom’s Permit Room does, for example.
It’s not going to be easy, especially give the current climate, but if any brand can, Busaba can.