Whitbread is a British multinational hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742 by Samuel Whitbread in partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell, with premises in London at the junction of Old Street and Upper Whitecross Street, along with a brewery in Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Samuel Whitbread bought out his partners, expanding into porter production with the purchase of a brewery in Chiswell Street, and the company had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
