Spaghetti House has shut all of its restaurants after its parent company, Lavval Restaurants, tumbled into administration and made 101 staff redundant. The remaining five central London sites were closed after administrators were brought in to help wind down the business.

The group behind the historic London hospitality brand had already closed three sites in Mayfair, Goodge Street and Fitzrovia in recent months, leaving only five restaurants trading before the latest shutdown. Lavval said its remaining business would cease trading after 70 years in operation.

The collapse ends a run that began in 1955, when Simone Lavarini founded Spaghetti House. The family remained owners for decades, turning the chain into a familiar name in central London, including the Knightsbridge branch that drew national attention in 1975 when three robbers took staff hostage after a failed robbery. That episode gave the restaurant a place in the capital’s odd history long before today’s accounting pressures closed the doors for good.

Luigi Lavarini said Lavval Restaurants Limited had entered administration and would cease trading. He said years of rising costs from the pandemic, Brexit, government budgets and global instability had created difficult conditions for hospitality, and that balancing those pressures with weaker customer demand and spending had proved too hard. “After 70 years of serving our loyal customers, it is with a heavy heart that we announce Lavval Restaurants Limited has entered administration and will cease trading,” he said.

Asher Miller said the directors approached BTG for advice on their available options after a number of years of challenging conditions made worse by soaring operational, employment, energy and tax costs across the sector. He said the directors then made the difficult decision to enter administration and appoint BTG to manage the controlled wind down of the business. The sequence points to a familiar ending in hospitality: a brand with history, but not enough cash flow to absorb the costs that keep climbing around it.

Spaghetti House’s collapse lands on the same day the industry is still digesting other large ownership changes, including Anil Yadav’s purchase of Denny’s in a $620 million deal after decades in restaurants. For customers in London, though, the immediate story is simpler and more abrupt: one of the city’s older restaurant names has gone dark, and the company behind it has stopped trading.