The Staggering Amount Of Money Gordon Ramsay's Restaurants Lost During The Pandemic
When he's not trying his hand as a game show host, roasting bakers who make cake-imitations of his face on TikTok, or, as Delish reports, trying to convince Jimmy Fallon to convince his wife not to have a sixth child, Gordon Ramsay has math to do.
Screen Rant calculates that the celebrity chef owns 35 restaurants on four different continents (North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia). You can find the bulk of them (18), in London, where COVID-19 lockdowns have wreaked havoc on the hospitality industry. "In December we had £10m worth of reservations wiped out overnight," Ramsay told The Sun in late February 2021. That's roughly $14 million US dollars, a little under a fifth of his total, COVID-19-related losses, which Ramsay calculated at just over $80 million.
It's not that Ramsay's headed towards bankruptcy. If International Business Times is to be believed, the celebrity chef made $70 million dollars in 2020, and is worth a healthy $220 million. So while he didn't make Forbes' richest 400 list, Ramsay's hardly about to shut down operations, either. Quite the opposite.
"I get criticized for being wealthy, but the responsibility on my shoulders — the livelihoods at stake — is huge, " Ramsay reflected to The Sun. "I feel that pressure enormously, and the impact of all this has been devastating and incredibly costly." That may be why, instead of downsizing, Ramsay is moving forward with plans to expand his culinary empire.
For Gordon Ramsay, it's full steam ahead
In the fall of 2021, Ramsay, according to Surrey Live, will open a cooking school: The Gordon Ramsay Academy. "I know how important mentors are; how important it is as a professional chef to sharpen your skills; to be guided in your training and to gain valuable work-place experience in a professional kitchen environment," he told the paper. A source told The Scottish Sun that students "will also get work experience in Gordon's portfolio of restaurants and there will be a guaranteed job at the end of it."
Where might his culinary students end up? Hard to tell. Maybe Malaysia, where Gordon Ramsay is on the verge of opening his first restaurant. In June 2021, visitors of the Sunway Resort in Kuala Lumpur will be able to dine at Ramsay's signature Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill (via Hospitality and Catering News). It's not the only new venture Ramsay has in the works. In fact, The Sun reports that Gordon Ramsay is planning on opening five more restaurants when "normality returns."