09/05/2026
In response to recent social media and news coverage we would like to issue the following statement:
We have failed to meet the standards expected of us, and we apologise to our customers, our staff and the wider community.
We understand that trust should be rebuilt with actions, not words. We are committed to maintaining significantly higher standards going forward.
We would like to highlight the incidents reported are not recent events, although the reports do not give specific dates, these occurred over a year ago during a period where the owners and directors were out of the country, with day-to-day operations in the hands of the management team.
Since these events we have instructed new contractors, improved procedures and restructured our business model. Owners are now more hands on within the business keeping a closer eye on operations and the previous management team have been replaced.
Due to the restructuring, we no longer use our warehouse/prep kitchen location for ingredient storage or food preparation. All our food prep is now carried out in our restaurant sites.
Both our Durham locations have since been re-visited by food hygiene inspectors and have been rated as follows:
• Lebaneat, North Bailey, Durham - 3 Star - October 2025
• Lebaneat Express, Gilesgate - 3 Star - March 2026
We feel these are vast improvements on situations over a year ago.
Food hygiene ratings can be viewed for all food businesses at food.gov.uk
We continue our commitment to improving and maintaining standards, in the hope of higher ratings in future and would like to thank our customers for their support.
- The Lebaneat Management team
Food Standards Agency makes sure food is safe and what it says it is.
