There has to be something fundamentally wrong - restaurant closure

Two areas of knowsley, Prescot and Huyton have gone to a bar/restaurant plan, rather than shops. Now those small businesses aren't surviving. One very successful restaurant in Rainhill (up the road from Prescot) has recently closed. Government intervention is needed. As a lifelong Labour supporter, the councils haven't got the interests of the areas, at the center of their planning. Another issue is that when Merseyside was on its arse, outside investors bought most of it and obviously it's about maximising profits.

I know what your saying but I am not going to pay more for a sub parr experience. Pre drinks in a bar that had no heating then restaurant protein portion was tiny bulked out with huge plate of rice. I have my own bottom line to look out for so I

We had got used to paying low prices for food in the UK. Obviously grocery prices have sky rocketed, but I have seen lots of threads on here with people complaining about the cost of eating out. So many people don't consider what makes up the total cost of eating out. A restaurant cannot compete on price with eating at home and it's daft to compare the two.

Chain restaurants have economies of scale for purchasing food and drink, but compromise by having central kitchens doing the cooking meaning you're effectively getting a ready meal in the actual restaurant where the food is reheated or cooked off with all the prep already done elsewhere. Lots of people cannot tell the difference. We had a local pub with an enterprising chef who was producing much better food than we had anticipated when we first tried it. When the ownership changed hands, the new owners got rid of the chef and the menu was all from Brakes and reheated. The quality nose dived although the cost to the diner didn't. I've no doubt it made running the pub cheaper, but it killed the restaurant part of the business with regular diners no longer prepared to pay for a product which had declined in quality. The business suffered further in the pandemic and ultimately closed.

Compare the US, for example, and the cost of eating out for a lot of people in employment is proportionately considerably a lot less than for people in the UK. I think we are experiencing a shift from eating out fairly regularly being the norm for a lot of people to being an expensive treat.

I knew a young woman who worked in a chain restaurant. She used to complain that she'd turn up for her shift, only to be sent home if it looked as though it was going to be a quiet evening. She was still living at home with her parents, but I expect the unreliability of this job would have been unsustainable for her if she'd had rent and bills to pay.

Yeah it's really sad. It's becoming impossible for businesses to survive, we have so many empty shop fronts now, we're going to have no high street!
A favourite cafe near me suddenly closed - same situation, prime location, always busy, good reviews, repeat custom etc. yet it's still not enough. Feels like we're loosing a community also. Something desperately needs to change.

It was a thing in the 1960s to drive to a motorway service station on the newly opened motorways specifically to eat a meal at the restaurant there.

You used to be able to get a proper cooked meal at a motorway services, no longer, it’s all fast food now.

As recently as the 90s DH and I would occasionally drive to a Little Chef on an A road near us for a meal, they were good value.

Yes, I noticed that eating out recently. The majority of tables around is were having just a main course. No starter or dessert and just had tap water.

Every beloved restaurant closed with my patronage because it wasn’t a rip off.

It's not a rip off if that's what it actually costs to maintain the business.

This is a good point - and a lot of my friends have reduced drinking and/or are on fat jabs so just eat a starter and some water!

Partly I think we have accepted that grocery prices will rise by say 20% and we have to suck it up - but if restaurant prices rise to this extent, we hum and haw and stay home.

Also Brexit decimated the waiting staff situation where I live. It was almost overnight.

It's restaurateur, no 'n'. Even Michelin starred chefs (well not the French ones) get that wrong. It's an incredibly difficult, costly business to be in. The mark up on alcohol covers lots of the costs. Running a restaurant well means long opening hours, high staffing requirements, managing goods with a short shelf life, etc, etc. It's why a lot of chain places seem understaffed - it's how they keep one of the big costs down.

I have seen so many facebook posts recently announcing closures from long established hospitality businesses here in NI. All of them have cited the huge spike in business rates as a factor, although not the only reason. The rate increase alone is nuts before you account for rise in NMW, employer NICs, food costs, utility costs etc etc. Fair play to anyone able to keep a restaurant running these days.

People expect to pay the same price eating out as they did in 2021, it's just not possible. Prices need to rise on menu every 5/6 months. Inflation was at 10% in 2022 .

Yes I am always shocked at places that close, busy, popular, but sometimes there are other things in the background like huge debts, or family working 7 days a week and burning out, the weight of the responsibility and no-one want to take over from them.
Recently I know of a VERY popular butchers closing. It was full every day. But the family running it had had enough of it taking over their life and none of the grown up kids wanted to take over.
A huge successful pet store, the only one for miles around and everyone went there for their pets and supplies. But again they had burnt themselves out running it and only wanted to sell it to someone passionate like themselves, couldn’t find anyone so sold the land to developers

I know of a few restaurants that are struggling and talking about closing, all are super busy and popular and have been running the last 10-20 years

One of them is closing due to a greedy landlord. Massive increase in rent and wants to tie him into a 10 year lease. He’s closing this week. He owns another bar across the road and that’s far more profitable for him so he’s concentrating on that. It’s a shame, their food is great, not wildly expensive (although it has increased quite a bit in the last year).

The other 2 are just struggling with increase in costs - business rates now the covid discounts are ending (and restaurants haven’t been included in the government’s relief they’re giving to pubs), rise in employers NI contributions, food cost increases, energy cost increases, etc, etc. They’ve managed to absorb them for a while but not any more and you can only put prices up so much before people stop coming.

DH runs a small business (not restaurant) and he thinks this is the worst winter he’s ever had.

Traditionally trade drops off December/January/February but this year the drop has been far bigger than it’s ever been. Weather is shite, his customers are struggling and not spending and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. He’s really considering his options at the moment - he basically brings home minimum wage for a ton of stress and responsibility and he’s not sure it’s worth it anymore.

To be fair it was always just advice to close. It was very clear. If you cannot work at home then you can go to work.

It nearly took our business down. All of our suppliers had closed, locking client funds in and holding the materials. Cash flow gone, had to reorder at own cost.

Serious serious problem for us. I still to this day refuse to work with any of them unless absolutely desperate.

But it also made our business. Whilst everyone else was having a gov funded holiday we kept working and tripled our growth overnight.

It's not just restaurants and it's not just greedy landlords though.

We have a little pie shop/bakery in our village. I'm their accountant so I know their "books" inside out. It's been there decades, though has had several changes of owners over the time I've lived in the village.

It's impossible for them to make more than minimum wage for the hours they work. Their staff get paid more than the two owners.

Their landlord (local couple) are actually very fair and havn't increased the rent for many years - it's well below "market rate" and cheaper than comparable sized retail units in the village.

Heat, light and power is absolutely enormous cost - over £1k per month for the ovens, counters, fridges, freezers, coffee machine, lighting and heating the unit. That's for basically a tiny two roomed "shopfront" (only open six hours per day) the backroom being the food prep area, the front room being the "shop" with just a couple of counters and shop floor space for a maximum of 4/5 customers. It's tiny! Power for businesses isn't regulated, there's no cap, and despite them going out to the market for comparison quotes every time their fixed contract ends, none of the providers offer any real low price options - "unit" prices of gas/electric used are many times the same unit prices of a domestic dwelling literally next door! Utility firms are just ripping off small businesses to subsidise the reduced/capped/competitive prices they have to offer domestic customers!

Staff wages NMW increase, employers NIC increases, employer workplace pension costs, have all risen far higher than they can increase their prices so tighten and reduce their margins.

But all other costs are rising faster for businesses than domestic inflation too - bank charges, business insurance, telephone, broadband, fire and burglar alarm systems, subscriptions, etc are all rising year on year faster than inflation. Again, they can't increase prices by that much, so another hit on the margins!

It's a busy shop, the current owners have revamped what they sell, much broader range of cold and hot meals alongside the traditional "bakery" items they still sell. Turnover is far higher than it was when they bought it about 7 years ago (even adjusted for inflation, they sell a lot more and are a lot busier), but they still can't come out themselves with minimum wage profit for the hours they work because their costs/overheads have risen far faster than they can increase their prices and/or increase the amount of goods they sell.

The cost of living "crisis" may be bad for workers, but it's a hell of a lot worse for lots of small businesses as they're being squeezed even more from all sides.

I'm literally waiting for the phone call from our village bakery to say they've had enough and are getting jobs in Tesco instead and closing it down.

A friend of ours owns a restaurant, he’s still filling tables but people are spending less. So, only getting a main course for example instead of a starter and main and not ordering as much alcohol,
The restaurant loons busy but takings are way down.

Maybe we could get vouchers and ‘eat out to help out’. Oh…hang on….

Their rent is being increased exponentially (I am unsure as to who is going to rent in future when the landlords all do this - is there a tax-dodge in here somewhere?)

Their other costs are rising - and guests don't want to pay higher prices

So they compromise by paying their staff a pittance, and not having enough staff. This does several things: it makes it difficult to hire anyone who can possibly make more elsewhere. It makes the staff unmotivated. This annoys guests who are becoming more and more abusive. Which means more and more staff leave.

It is a perfect storm. My personal view: we have been used to cheap food and cheap restaurants for too long and going out for a meal is getting back to what it was when i was younger, that is something that is much more of a treat, and we went much less often.

Do you think that the government should control commercial rents? What role do you see for them in this scenario?

Well thry could put their prices up but would people pay it?

We are returning to the situation as it was in the 60s or 50s or before.

The options were expensive 'posh' restaurants, or greasy-spoon caffs for truckers and teenagers. Neither of which would you dream of taking your family to. Eating out as a family just wasn't a thing for the vast majority, unless a very special occasion once a year. Going to a restaurant for a meal with your girlfriend/boyfriend was a very special date.
It was a thing in the 1960s to drive to a motorway service station on the newly opened motorways specifically to eat a meal at the restaurant there.

The arrival of modern fast-food places (to replace the traditional caffs), and pub restaurants for the masses, changed expectations completely.

Our society is no longer wealthy enough to support lots of people eating out regularly.
We have take-aways for now, but in a few more decades of economic decline, even they will be unaffordable for the masses, except perhaps for chips that you go and fetch yourself (no delivery service).

There was quite a well known fish shop near us. When I first started going it was £17.00 for 2 fish and 1 chips and less than a year later it was £19.50.
They have now closed down and I asked in one of the other shops if they knew why and they said the rent and rates were 12500.00 a month.
Putting up prices is not working because obviously people are going less.
If I can work that out surely one of the geniuses in the government can.

Is it in Manchester, by any chance? If so, I know the restaurant you mean and I'm absolutely gutted that it's closing. We've been eating there for 20 years and it was our go-to whenever had family visiting because it was so reliably good.

If it's not the same restaurant, then it just goes to show that there's a pattern here.

Restaurants, bars and cafes keep high streets and city centres alive. With retailers giving up bricks and mortar stores to sell online, the businesses that keep people coming to town are places that provide in-person services - cafes, pubs, restaurants, music venues, theatres, places that provide an activity like escape rooms or whatever, as well as hairdressers and nail bars and gyms and so on. If we keep losing successful independent cafes and restaurants, we're going to be stuck with high streets that are basically empty except for a few barbers and a couple of chain restaurants that serve mediocre, identikit food in no atmosphere and survive on economy of scale, which means their food is essentially akin to going out and eating a ready-meal.