Nottingham restaurant that closed and suddenly made all staff redundant owes thousands to employees

A once-popular Nottingham restaurant that closed and suddenly made all staff redundant owes thousands of pounds to its former employees. Annie's Burger Shack went bust owing an estimated £274,643 to former staff members, suppliers and the taxman, newly filed financial documents have revealed.

The restaurant, which had traded from Broadway in the Lace Market since 2013, closed without warning in October and made its 20 employees redundant. Documents, recently submitted to Companies House by CFS Restructuring, explained the business had less than £5,000 in assets when placed into liquidation, meaning it had nowhere near enough money to pay back those owed money.

The venue had shut with £557 in cash in its bank account and £21,000 worth of furniture and equipment - but the liquidators said they only expected to recoup £4,420 from selling this off. This will not be enough to fully pay the former employees of the failed business, who previously said they had been kept in the dark over its financial problems, and had claimed for £19,723 of arrears and holiday pay.

HMRC will be left out of pocket by the company's collapse, as it was owed a substantial £146,910 in PAYE and VAT payments. A number of cleaning and catering suppliers are also set to lose out as these trading creditors were owed £70,606, but were unsecured creditors.

Another claim by employees for an additional £43,127 owed to them was also unsecured, making it unlikely any of this money will be paid to them. When Annie's first closed staff had been told not to come in due to "kitchen issues", but they then reported seeing equipment including fridges, freezers, grills and computers being loaded into vans.

Workers said they had later confronted bosses when they saw the burger joint, famed for its wacky burgers, listed on letting sites. They claim they were told this was a mistake, but orders for beer and food later stopped.

In early October a letter was sent from Worcesterabs Limited, trading as Annie's, to tell staff the business was "not in a position to continue trading" and that it was "necessary to bring the trading activities of the company to an immediate close". The restaurant had closed its Derby location at the start of 2024 and its parent company had been put into liquidation in 2023.