Browns Restaurants

Browns Brasserie & Bar is a British chain of restaurants owned by Mitchells & Butlers, with sites mostly located in the south of England.

Browns was the first hospitality venture established by Jeremy Mogford, who in 1973 invested £10,000[1] (of which £2,500 was borrowed from his father) in the first Browns Restaurant and Bar in Brighton, East Sussex. He established a chain of seven restaurants, mostly in university towns such as Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford, with an annual turnover of £15 million. In 1996, Mogford sold the Browns chain to Bass Brewery for £35 million.[2]

Mogford was regarded as one of the industry's best and most enlightened employers, which was reflected in a low staff turnover rate. He and his restaurants were used as a case study in a hospitality and entrepreneurship textbook illustrating commitment to employees.[3] In addition, Browns was profiled in a widely used capacity management study by Deterministics Inc. for Cornell University's Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly journal.[4]

References

  1. UNSUNG HEROES: Jeremy Mogford, owner, Mogford Limited Boutique Hotelier, 2019-04-10, retrieved 2026-02-22^
  2. Jeremy Mogford The Oxford Magazine, retrieved 2026-02-22^
  3. Claire Williams, Alison Morrison, Mike Rimmington. Entrepreneurship in the Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Industries Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999^
  4. Applying Capacity-management Science Cqx.sagepub.com, 1999-06-01, retrieved 2015-02-01^