Under normal circumstances, any CEO of a restaurant group posting a half-year loss of over £200m would be gone. But these are not normal circumstances. So despite that huge fall in pre-tax profits, over half of which was down to restructuring costs, The Restaurant Group CEO Andy Hornby believes the 400-site business is in “good shape, all things considered. You have to judge your performance in the context of what’s going on around you.” Has there ever been context as chaotic as this? “It’s such a strange period,” says Hornby, and it’s fair to say that sales and profits have been so wildly skewed by the events of the last few months that judging any operation by the numbers over the last six months feels pointless.