The private equity owners of Little Chef, the roadside restaurant chain, have gone into exclusive talks with catering entrepreneurs Lawrence Wosskow and Simon Heath to sell all 233 sites plus the restaurant's brand name in a deal set to be worth "north of £50 million".

Mr Wosskow and Mr Heath, the co-founders of the Out of Town Restaurants Group, are understood to have tabled an offer for Little Chef of between up to £55 million. The businessmen are believed to have expressed an early interest in Little Chef after it was put up for sale last November.

A deal is expected to be completed within the next four to six weeks.

Little Chef is owned by Permira, which two years ago paid £712 million to buy them and the Travelodge budget hotels from Compass, the catering group. Permira owns the two chains through its TLLC Group Holdings special purpose vehicle.

A valuation of more than £50 million for the 233 Little Chef restaurants is ahead of analysts' expectations of the group's worth. The two entrepreneurs will also have the right to open new sites using the Little Chef brand name.

TLLC said this morning: "TLLC confirms that following negotiations with a number of possible acquirers of the Little Chef brand, discussions to sell 233 restaurants and the Little Chef brand have progressed to an exclusive stage with Lawrence Wosskow and Simon Heath."

If the deal completes successfully, Mr Wosskow and Mr Heath will take control of a group that has more than 20 million customers a year and which employs more than 4,700 staff.

When TLLC originally unveiled plans to sell Little Chef, it intended to sell just 118 locations, retaining control of the 115 sites that are shared with Travelodge. The idea behind the sale was to free up the group to focus on the Travelodge budget hotel brand.

However, after holding initial talks with Mr Wosskow and Mr Heath, TLLC decided to extend talks to cover a sale of the entire business. It is believed that TLLC feels comfortable about sharing Travelodge locations with Little Chefs that are controlled by the two men.

TLLC declined to comment on the potential sale price for Little Chef or on the timeframe for a completed sale.

The first Little Chef opened in Reading in 1958, but - aided by the development of Britain's motorway network - soon became an icon for hungry families seeking pitstops on a long journey.

The strength of the brand, which has faced increasing competition from rivals over recent years, was underscored last year after plans to redesign the Little Chef logo caused uproar among loyal visitors.

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