Italy's Benetton family is in talks to buy Little Chef. Sunday Times. Daily Telegraph

Little Chef operates almost 200 roadside restaurants, including 50 franchised Burger King fast-food outlets.

The family has made an approach through Autogrill, its Italian motorway services company.

Little Chef has also received other approaches, believed to be from Wendy’s, US family restaurant chain Denny’s, and a French fast-food chain.

Little Chef, which employs 3,200 people, was bought out of administration last January by R Capital. Now worth about £20m, it had been bought by entrepreneurs Lawrence Wosskow and Simon Heath in October 2005 from private equity firm Permira for £52m, but struggled to meet its high rent bill.