There has to be something fundamentally wrong - restaurant closure

Clinton’s Cards closed their branch in my city centre a couple of years ago too. They have branches everywhere and I can’t imagine this branch was any less profitable than the others, but I suppose it must have been the rents.

I was talking to a local coffee shop owner who place was closing on. He was telling me how much he needed to sell a day just to cover his overheads. It was a crazy amount.

Don't forget Brexit. Far fewer young people from the continent available for minimum wage jobs with unsocial hours.

The entertainer has just closed in my town the rent increase made it not worth the bother there is limited footfall in my area the town centre as a whole is shocking and they charge a fortune to park our cars and charge the shops massive rents we are a failing town and no-one will do anything about it

There is a busy family-run gastropub near me. The prices are quite high (in terms of what you might expect for a village pub rather than a fancy restaurant), but it's still popular because the food and atmosphere are great. Maybe at the place you're talking about, they were too hesitant about raising prices to what they needed to be?

If it's so busy they should be able to raise their prices to cover the rise in costs. There is no point being packed out if you're not making enough money to cover the costs - you're basically paying people to eat in your restaurant.
If they end up with not enough customers willing to pay those prices, they have a different problem. But it's not necessarily true, that putting prices up will drive all your customers away.

Rents
Business rates
Costs of food ingredients
Business & third party insurance
Staffing minimum wage

It’s a tough game and for some just not worth the pain any more

YANBU, there are closures around here too. No landlords involved in the ones I know of, and the owners can’t find buyers for their businesses. Government policies on NI and rates have undoubtedly been the last bloody big straw bale breaking the camel’s back on top of the other economic conditions.

Mmm, and a lot of the sector was reliant on an oversupply of cheap labour. The job market and population pyramids look very different now.

Three local business have shut on my High street since covid. Two were family business that had been in the same premises since the Victorian era. Both of those had people retire and their children did not want to take over the business. I’m unsure of the third ones length of tenure but it was a similar story though they had no children. My mate owns a small shop, his DD was going to take over but has decided against this, he remains open as one of the last independant shops on our High street running it at age 70. I’m assuming with some restaurants it’s the same. My bio Dad had a restaurant, I love cooking and worked in his restaurant as a child and since I retired have done voluntary cooking at couple of food projects but no way would I want that as a career.

I am not disputing that many business are suffering because of costs but there is this generational business issue. Lots of second and third generation children of immigrants like me especially have just no interest.

The Superdrug closed in my town a couple of years ago. They literally have a store in every high street, often more one in a town, but not here. They cited high rents and extortionate business rates. So it’s not about the takings.

It’s a familiar story unfortunately with lots of small businesses. Relative runs a small trades type business. They got absolutely hammered during Covid and have now been told by insurers/ landlord etc it was only guidelines to close which is BS. We suspect the landlords costs were covered and he hasn’t passed these on. Truth be told they’ve neee really recovered since then.

On top of that the cost of materials has sky rocketed, wages for labourers is sky high, it’s nigh on impossible for them to do their work in London without getting parking tickets, customers don’t want to pay more as they can go online and say oh I saw this on xyz for this amount. They’re always busy but just can’t seem to make it pay and will inevitably have to close

One here gone the same way.

they’ve got a couple of restaurants in the area and all are lovely and very popular.

A busy restaurant often indicates their margins might be considering the consumer rather than the bottom line. Every beloved restaurant closed with my patronage because it wasn’t a rip off. As said rents will be a factor. I notice places I used to like bulk stuff out with cheaper ingredients potatoes for example now so stopped going as prices rose these places will survive and newer customers will be oblivious.

Landlords are a big problem here - big commercial landlords who put the rent up. It is not an easy one for the government to solve. And if you think capitalism is the right way to run an economy on principle, the government should not be stepping in.

also, restaurants are often a precarious business- even fancy ones don’t always make money and margins are tight.