Andy Lennox

Andy Lennox is a British restaurateur and hospitality campaigner whose advocacy has focused on value-added tax (VAT) and business rates for the hospitality sector. He was among the founders of the restaurant group Koh Thai Tapas in 2009 and served as its chief executive until 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he founded the hospitality advocacy network The Wonky Table and began a sustained campaign for government support and a lower hospitality VAT rate. His advocacy later included repeated campaigns, work with members of Parliament and meetings with government and business leaders. In 2025, he became a principal organiser of a national campaign by hospitality venues protesting against business rates and VAT taxation. In 2026 he united the Hosptiality trade bodies in a nation-wide campaign on VAT.

Restaurant career

Lennox was among the founders of Koh Thai Tapas in Bournemouth in 2009. The business expanded across southern England, and by November 2016 operated 12 restaurants. That month, Lennox led a management buyout backed by Alcuin Capital Partners. He remained chief executive, while Lennox and the management team retained a controlling interest.

He stepped down as chief executive in 2018 to pursue a new restaurant venture. Later that year he announced Zim Braai, a southern African-inspired restaurant concept, with its first site planned for Parkstone, Dorset. In 2020 he established Fired Up Collective, which subsequently operated the Nusara restaurant brand and a portfolio of pubs under the investment company West Wessex Pub Co. The Fired Up Hospitality Group currently operates 9 venues from is base in Dorset, UK

Hospitality advocacy

Lennox founded The Wonky Table in March 2020 as hospitality businesses faced restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group organised a letter backed by more than 200 businesses in south-west England, calling for measures concerning furlough, VAT, rent and insurance. In February 2021, he launched a campaign asking the government to extend the temporary 5 per cent hospitality VAT rate until March 2022. It passed 10,000 signatures within days and closed with 17,738.

After the pandemic relief ended, Lennox launched further campaigns seeking a permanently lower VAT rate for hospitality. In 2022 one called for the rate to be reduced from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. It closed with 18,374 signatures after the government responded that it had no plans to make the reduction.

In March 2023, Tobias Ellwood referred to Lennox's campaigns in the House of Commons and urged the chancellor to reduce hospitality VAT to 10 per cent. During a Westminster Hall debate on fiscal support for hospitality in January 2024, MPs from several parties supported a reduced rate. The Caterer reported that Lennox had worked with Ellwood on the issue and that Lennox's later campaigns had received more than 14,000 signatures. It had passed 20,000 by February 2024.

Following the November 2025 United Kingdom budget, Lennox helped turn a protest by Dorset hospitality operators into a national campaign in which participating venues said they would refuse entry to Labour members of Parliament. The campaign, commonly called “No Labour MPs”, sought changes to planned business-rates increases and a lower rate of value-added tax for hospitality. In January 2026, The New York Times reported that the campaign had spread to about 1,400 venues, while The Wall Street Journal described Lennox as having spearheaded the protest.

The tactic was criticised by Ash Corbett-Collins, chair of the Campaign for Real Ale, who said that excluding MPs risked making it harder for publicans to engage with decision-makers. The Treasury defended its wider package of business-rates support. Lennox said the campaign would continue to seek support for hospitality businesses beyond pubs and live-music venues.

In April 2026, The Independent reported that Lennox had taken his campaign for a 13 per cent hospitality VAT rate to London for meetings with government and business leaders. On 3 June 2026, during Prime Minister's Questions, the MP Rosie Duffield referred to “campaigners such as Andy Lennox” when asking the prime minister to reduce hospitality VAT in line with European rates. The prime minister responded by referring to business-rates support and a temporary VAT reduction on children's meals. Lennox united the industry in a call for VAT and now is supporting the wider “VAT's the Problem” campaign launched by Tom Kerridge and UKHospitality alongside all of the trade bodies; something Lennox has advocated for a long time, VAT could only be achieved if the industry acted together

Public and industry roles

While establishing Koh Thai in Boscombe, Lennox chaired the council-backed Boscombe Area Regeneration Group, which promoted inward investment in the area. He later served on the boards of Bournemouth's coastal and town-centre business-improvement districts. In 2023, the mental-health organisation The Burnt Chef Project appointed him to its non-executive board.

Lennox became vice-chair of the Destination Management Board for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in 2022. He became its chair in early 2024, and remained listed in the role in 2026.

Awards and recognition

In 2014, he was named Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year at the Dorset Tourism Awards.

In 2021, Lennox won the Most Innovative Response to the Pandemic award at the Institute of Hospitality Southern Branch's Hospitality Heroes Awards.

In 2025 Lennox was made a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality (FIH), the institute's highest membership grade for his "outstanding contribution to the Hosptiality Industry"

External links

• The Wonky Table
• VAT's the Problem campaign

References

Category:Living people Category:British restaurateurs Category:British businesspeople Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

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