The Premier League was won by the former Manchester United academy graduate, but his restaurant endeavors haven’t gone as well.
Former Chelsea and Leicester City player Danny Drinkwater had to bear a staggering £782,000 loss on his faltering restaurant venture in Manchester.
Having not played for a team since his Chelsea contract expired last summer, the Red Devils youth academy graduate announced his retirement from professional football last week. To celebrate the news, Drinkwater spoke candidly about his struggles with mental health following his 2017 move from Leicester to Chelsea in an in-depth interview with the High-Performance Podcast.
Drinkwater created the hip and wellness-focused restaurant FoodWell in Manchester in 2019, but in just its first year of business, the establishment accrued £2 million in debt despite receiving positive reviews for its innovative fusion of food and exercise. After the pandemic, the company continued, but it shuttered its doors a year ago.
That hiccup didn’t dent the star’s taste for the culinary business with Drinkwater then moving to purchase a 70% stake in health-conscious restaurant Firefly. The Salford venue is known for its brunch, cocktails, and sushi. However, The Sun reports that Drinkwater has been informed by liquidators that the restaurant is currently £1.1 million in debt.
When announcing his recent retirement, the Premier League winner explained how his struggles at Chelsea following his £35 million move in 2017 were ‘the darkest’ he had felt. He said: “It was the darkest I’d felt. It was like I was drowning and had forgotten how to swim. Anyone who thinks earning good money will solve all of your problems is not true at all.
“Mental health is more important than physical. It was the darkest I’d ever felt and it was like I was drowning and forgotten how to swim.”
Manchester-born Drinkwater was a Manchester United graduate and broke into the first team in 2009 at a time when Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, and Cristiano Ronaldo were in the squad. The midfielder, who once fell out with Sir Alex Ferguson over some spaghetti bolognese, made it onto the bench at Old Trafford but never recorded an appearance for the first team before moving to Leicester in 2012.
Drinkwater isn’t the first former Carrington graduate to venture into the world of business and hospitality with Gary Neville famously commanding a business empire that includes a restaurant. However, the former full-back’s Stock Market Grill was suddenly shut just four months after opening earlier this year.
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