There has to be something fundamentally wrong - restaurant closure

[Terroror]

A restaurant we go to quite often is about to closing after two decades in business.

It’s popular, booked out all the time. In fact, I understand it’s had the busiest Christmas period in its history.

Its closing because the business is no longer sustainable to due to rising costs. Not lack of custom - it’s very busy - but energy costs, rates, staffing costs.

A much loved business down the pan.

There really is something fundamentally wrong when experienced restauranteurs with a busy restaurant can’t make this work.

I don’t see much concern from the government.

AIBU?

Oh well that’s okay then. Those people who have worked for years in the hospitality sector, undergone training and worked unsociable hours in often physically demanding roles should just be reassured that they’ll find something else?! We don’t say that about the steel industry do we?

Why ? Is she responsible for Brexit? You know, the self inflicted disaster that turned the country into an economic basket case?

As someone said uptjread. The country wanted to be poorer so voted for brexit and tories. Now complaining that chickens have come home to roost and it's all somehow all the current govts fault.

Shrinkflation is part of the problem.

We made an effort to visit our fave restaurant about once every 6 weeks and shrinkflation has caused me to boycott out favourite restaurant.

They used to do am amazing I've cream sundae for £6.50, they've put it up to £9.50 AND cut the ingredients down to barely more than ice cream and a brownie. It's not even homemade ice-cream. They've gotten rid of the nuts, sauce, fruit and whipped cream. It's a brownie and shop bought ice cream in a cup for nearly a tenner. I can bake a brownie and scoop icecream myself for that price and the dessert was the main reason we went. We are lucky to have money, we would have paid more and kept our usual visit frequency jut we aren't going someone where they are charging more and offering less.

I would have paid more than £10 for the bloody sundae if they'd kept the quality.

Takeaways. That's the other killer. It's fast turnover, cheaper and no need for attentive staff and nice surroundings. Takeaway is so prevalent that some people never think that they eat out regularly, despite getting a takeaway maccies, subway, kfc weekly.

High Street. As a family, we used to "visit the city" and tack on a restaurant visit to make a day of it. Not now as there are independent shops. All the big names are online so rather than paying £10 to park 🙄 and make sure I'm there at 9am so I'm not stuck in traffic, I go online. Often vinted as there is so much overconsumption it's like an outlet store of new clothes.

The solution imo is converting office blocks to flats and making them affordable for the Double Income No Kids market so they live centrally and put money into the high street and restaurants. But no. Let's mandate office working and commutes and make it easier to build new 4 beds on the outskirts of town with no infrastructure which young people can't afford and mandates a car.

i think we need families with kids and old people in towns too though. And a lot of these office blocks have lifts etc and garage parking so would be ideal for the elderly or families.

Why did pubs ban Reeves then?

Stupidity?

it isn't only Brexit tho. It is over on mainland Europe too. And of course the USA is well known for making waiting staff rely on tips to live.

Thete are far fewer Steel Mills to chose from, than pubs and restaurants (schools, carehomes, factories .. and all the other places that need Cooks, Chefs & Porters)

If they’d doubled their prices it would have worked 🤷‍♀️

more people would get a table, it would still be a special night out

Depends what you mean by a zombie business, I think. For example, I think a small shop or cafe which makes a modest living for the hard-working couple who run it (and perhaps for a couple of part-time workers such as students) is a good thing and far better than an empty unit on the high street.

In a town centre near me, there are several food vans including one which sells Ethiopian food. I think the food is delicious and I'd have to travel a long way to find anything similar. In my opinion, the small family businesses offer a unique selling point and can attract shoppers from elsewhere. When I go to another town or city, I'm not interested in their branches of Primark, M&S, TG Jones or Waterstones - we have our own! I'm interested in one town's old-fashioned and idiosyncratic hardware shop which is like a Tardis, another town's shop filled with beautiful Indian furniture and homewares, and the vegan cafe selling delicious cakes that are the largest I have ever seen, anywhere.

I know that . But there wont be if the decline continues.

Ask Rachel Reeves

Actually they did - which is why the government is having to bail out the few remaining ones.

Those people who have worked for years in the hospitality sector, undergone training and worked unsociable hours in often physically demanding roles should just be reassured that they’ll find something else? - that's what the miners, the textile workers, etc. were told....

Not always the case. Our local city council have bought up a lot of prime High Street premises over the years, most of which are now empty and have been for years. They bought our Wilkinsons store premises a year before Wilkinsons collapsed and it's been empty and getting more and more derelict ever since. Likewise they bought a Frankie & Benny premises which also closed after a year or so and has been empty since. Rents being asked by the letting agents are absolutely stupidly high, but council can't accept less as they have to be seen to make a percentage investment return on the amount they paid - it's easier for them to justify a zero return left empty rather than justify a 1 or 2 percent return which shows they made a poor investment decision. Being empty seems to be more "excusable" due to the market conditions than letting at a low percentage which shows a bad decision.!!

From April 2026, UK business rates are changing following a new revaluation, with rateable values increasing by an average of 19.4% in England, and up to 70% for some pubs. To mitigate this, the government is introducing a £4.3 billion support package, capping bill increases at 15% for most businesses, with a 5p cut in the multiplier for retail, hospitality, and leisure.
Well it’s the clever govt. again isn’t it!?

Sorry , what I really meant is “we dont say that about the steel industry without an outcry”. Because, quite rightly when an entire industrial sector is under threat , particularly if they include huge sites that employ a great percentage of local workers, there is much public outrage.

My point is that when the hospitality sector is spoken of it’s often in terms of entry level, min wage , temporary jobs as if these are somehow more easily dispensed with. And that workers will just switch to something else. In my opinion the hospitality sector is woefully undervalued.

I can fully understand why a restaurant may find its turnover doesn’t cover its costs these days.

What I don’t understand is why they wouldn’t try various changes first, before closing. For example price rises. If they are fully booked all the time, you’d think at least some of those customers will keep coming, even with a price rise? Then you’d see whether the stayers are enough to make the business profitable. Could also try things like closing on certain nights, reducing the menu, etc etc.

This literally makes no sense.

The reason they're closing is precisely because government has been stepping in.

They've just had a large NI rise and their business rates are going to go up probably massively in April. And that follows years of energy rises to pay for Net Zero plus numerous other state driven costs

In fairness, they have, lots of them, before concluding that they couldn’t make it work.

It's not a moral judgment - it's just the way of the world. Businesses and industries rise and fall and you have to roll with it. I've been made redundant four times in my career - it was gutting the first time, but it's how the job market works and you have to dust yourself off and move on. And yes, actually, I do think the same applies to steel workers.

ETA - I do agree that the hospitality sector is massively undervalued in this country though.

They were closing long before that though. It's not just the government - the breweries make unrealistic demands on landlords, only allowing them to sell certain products and forcing them to buy upfront and so on. The breweries screwed over a load of landlords during covid by forcing them to buy beer they couldn't sell to anyone and which just went out of date. (That may not be exactly right as I am not a pub owner myself but my mate is, and they went bust during covid for this reason).

This. Landlords take the majority of restaurant profits. If the owner manages to increase profits then the rent just goes up at the next review. I’ve seen it happen several times in a popular high street near where I live: successful restaurants going out of business due to high rent increases. The landlord soon finds another person willing to give it a go because the location is so good.

@ExtraOnions

Zombie businesses, who are barely ticking by, paying NMW, and not generating any real profit, are not good for the economy. The resources that they are using need to be freed up, for Buisness that can pay more, and generate more revenue.

You have to look at the bigger picture. These "zombie" businesses you talk about often help bring customers to the street or area where they are located. People are more likely to go to a shopping street/precinct where there are several shops/businesses, so those around the "zombies" are also helped from increased footfall.

I've seen it so many times, and we experienced it with our family newsagents/convenience store back in the 80s. We bought it when it was on a precinct of 7 shops including a butchers, greengrocers, chemist, bakers and off licence. It was a thriving/busy precinct as shoppers literally went from shop to shop. First the butchers closed and it was an absolute hammer blow - our takings went down by 10/20% overnight and never recovered but we survived. Then the green grocers closed who'd been more badly affected by the butchers closing. Our turnover down another 10/20% and so it went on. After several years, we were the last shop standing as all the others had closed.

Same has happened in our village. We used to have around a dozen shops including post office, newsagents, grocers, chemist, chip shop, butchers, bakers/pie shop, etc. Now all we have left is the bakers/pie shop. As each shop closed, the others suffered a loss in trade which in turn tipped them over the edge too.

It's how the High Streets in town centres are collapsing, once they lose one or more of the major "anchor" shops, the footfall drops and others close down too.

Same with cafes, pubs, restaurants, etc - they're not "Islands", they rely on the surrounding area, whether it's parking or public transport, complimentary businesses, etc. A pub next door to a restaurant will support eachother and when one closes, the other WILL suffer as people drink/eat somewhere else with both for a night out.

The hospitality industry has always been up and down. Many well known names have not been able to sustain and grow businesses in the restaurant trade. Plus in the UK we don't consider service in hospitality as a profession. It's what you do until you find something better. That means service is really variable. Recruiting, training and keeping good people is difficult.