It looks like we’ve reached the end of the road for Karen’s Diner – the infamous, controversial restaurant chain that made a name for itself with intentionally rude service. As of today, all six of the group’s UK restaurants have ceased trading, following a winding up petition was issued by a creditor.
According to Companies House, Karen’s Diner’s UK parent company – Viral Ventures UK – owes over £400,000 to creditors.
Karen’s Diner UK originally went viral back in 2022 thanks to videos on social media of performative staff being purposely rude to guests. The group had big expansion plans and opened sites in a number of UK cities including Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield.
By June 2024, it was reported that Karen’s Diner had closed all sites except for one in London, planning instead to host a variety of pop-up events around the country. The group sold lots of tickets for these events, but many ticket holders arrived at the events only to find out that they’d been cancelled with no prior warning.
Frost Group Limited has been named as liquidators for Viral Ventures UK, and has since said that the rest of the events are ‘now very unlikely to take place,’ leaving around 2,500 ticket holders out of pocket.
‘It is always a challenging moment when a business, especially one with the reach of Viral Ventures, is forced into liquidation,’ said Frost Group founder Jeremy Frost. ‘We understand the disappointment and concern, particularly for those with deposits for upcoming shows. Our priority is to guide those affected through this process and ensure the necessary steps are taken.’
A Viral Ventures support website has been set up to help customers, creditors and staff who have been affected by the group’s sudden collapse.
The Karen’s Diner concept started originally in Australia, but Viral Ventures Australia also collapsed into liquidation in summer 2023, owing a whopping $4.3 million to creditors.
Meanwhile, Greggs is gunning for the fashion world with it’s debut collection of 22 carat gold jewellery. Read more about that here.
