AIBU to be surprised by the rise in pub Christmas meal prices?

[Seajaye]

AIBI to be surprised at the huge increase of a pub meal this year? Its the time of year for gathering up menus to choose somewhere to book for the annual Christmas meal out booking for work and b.clubs. I would be interested to know what other people's experiences are.

Our annual Christmas get-together has been at the same pub for last 4 years. It's nice pub grub , but nothing out of the ordinary, Wooden tables and Chairs on wooden floor. Nice enough but not fancy. The Loos could do with a bit of a makeover.

We normally go on a Monday mid December.
, 6.30p.m booking. It's been creeping up in price by £2.00. per annum and this year now £36 for two courses and £42.00. for 3. A £5.00 purchase for the cheeseboard.

then there's drinks on top. Mulled wine in arrival is £8.50 a small glass.I'm in East Anglia. 4 years ago the same menu was £17 for two courses and £23.00 for 3. Doubled in 4 years. Is that the case elsewhere.

Sadly this year there's a few of of the group on limited incomes so I don't think the annual.meal.gettogether is going to happen this year at those prices. No one's income has increased by 4 fold in the same period.

A lot of the rise is down to Labour.

Increased business rates
Increased minimum wage
Increased alcohol duty
Increased energy costs (net zero and sanctions)
Part time workers NI contributions

I know a few pub owners trying to sell at the moment but the banks won't lend to their potential buyers.

I know overheads and cost of food ingredients have increased, but have these costs actually doubled over last 4 years or it higher profit margins, or is it because ess people are eating out, so overheads have to be spread over fewer customers , resulting in such a large hike in price, and even less people eating out regularly. If it is the latter, it seems to me it will be a self perpetuating problem unless disposable incomes increases.

Well a lot of this is the consequences of 'work should pay more'. NMW has risen significantly over the past few years so surprise surprise, goods and services that rely heavily on low paid labour have got a lot more expensive. Plus the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, also Brexit. None of these are Labour's fault, it's world events and the previous government in the main.

Rise in NMW, food prices and heating will be the cause.

You have realised food prices have been going up right???

I agree. Costs of everything rise plus the owners do actually need to make a profit and cover their own more expensive living costs so there it is. I dont think thats a lot per head to be honest for any restaurant meal. If it is going to price some colleagues out could a) the business subsidise it a litte? Or b) do some sort of in-house buffet? Bottles of mulled wine are £5 in Lidl etc.

You can blame the Labour government but mostly Rachel Reeves and her lack of concept of how businesses work.

The prices sound reasonable to me against the cost of food, wages and so on. Hospitality is taking a real kicking.

ITA with pp, its about rising COL, increases in NMW and NI. It sounds reasonable to me. We see pubs closing for good regularly, when out and about. We don’t know, but we imagine the rents are also going up in tied tenancies?

I would say the prices four years ago were very low, it is exactly as @TheNoonBell has written and it was pretty obvious but then again Labours aren’t we great, so kind policies always have unintended consequences.

I heard on the news that a petition has been sent to Burnham asking for a 10% reeducation in VAT to help them.

No idea of the Christmas menu yet but a small carvery used to be £9 at my local pub and now it’s £12.

Our local one was £28 for two courses last year. It was absolutely delicious and the meat was so plentiful. DH and I went three times with different groups of people 😂 The previous year, we went somewhere else and we were shocked as it was £180 for the two of us in a Hall and Woodhouse pub (3 courses) It was extremely average, no drinks included, and we haven’t been back since.

My 2 local pubs are charging £120 and £100 for an adult Christmas lunch this year

There isn't a cap on business energy prices. In 2021 ours doubled overnight and climbed steadily until we sold the restaurant. Our local pub spends over £3k a month just on electricity and another £1k on gas. Then there's the increased cost of food and labour. So yes prices need to increase - margins are already tight and December is one of the few months in the year when they might make a profit rather than just break even or make a loss. Hundreds of pubs, restaurants and cafes are closing down because they can't absorb the costs and their customers are unwilling to pay the prices needed for them to stay afloat.

Its understandable given everything going on, but agree its unaffordable for many now. We will be doing a buffet in the office then some drinks at a pub to be honest.

I own a cafe and my outgoings have almost doubled in the past five years. My cash and carry bill is almost three times what it was when I started. Electric bills have increased. I don’t have staff, but we all know how those costs have risen too. Sadly prices have to go up a bit.
it sounds like your original meal price was very cheap. Personally I don’t think it sounds too bad a price if the food is reasonable. Saying that as someone on a low income.

As others have said, rising prices.

However there’s another shift you might have missed. Previously they could set the meal prices at just about covering the costs of making and serving it, because where they’d made their money from your group was the drinks. The food got you in for 2-3 hours on an otherwise quiet night, and the pub made its profits off the drinks bill. However, there’s been a big social shift away from heavy drinking and more people not drinking at all, this does seem to have ramped up over the last 5 years.

Now pubs have to make their money off the food. Last time I did a group meal out with work, only 2 people bought a glass of wine, there was a few soft drinks bought but mainly people were drinking water. They’ve got to make a profit on the food now. They might get lucky and you order 3 bottles of wine, but food prices have to be set on the “everyone’s driving” assumption.

Even the chain carveries are charging close to £70 pp on Christmas Day.

But people will pay it, which I just wouldn't. If I wanted a Christmas meal out, I'd do it on another day in December where you can get similar food for less than half the price and then just have something easy and treaty like a seafood buffet at home on Christmas day itself if I didn't want to cook a roast.

It's a perfect storm. Prices have shot up at the same time as people's disposable income has contracted so they're having to reduce the amount they spend on non essentials like eating out.

Pub meals have gone up a lot over the last couple of years. I used to mentally budget £25 - £30 for a main, pudding and glass of wine.

The rack of ribs my son had in a Harvester last night was £22.

I understand why, their costs have increased, but it's becoming unaffordable and we don't eat out as much as we did. We have the same amount of "fritter" money each month, but it now just about covers one family meal out.

i think many pubs are losing money on the Christmas parties following Covid / WFH expansion
since Covid the Christmas dinners/parties I’ve been to have been smaller, and end earlier due to many people either not coming or team dinners/lunches only or someone saying they can only do between 11:30-12:15 due to some commute or other commitment

i don’t blame them for having to increase costs

VAT replaced a purchase tax when we joined the EEC. It was 'temporarily' raised by the Tories in 91 to pay for the abolition of the poll tax, from 15% to 17.5%. Cameron then raised it again to 20% in 2011. Why is everyone blaming Labour?

VAT has been 20% for years. It’s the commitment to net zero and the increased employment costs that are labours fault. The UK NMW is a huge OECD outlier now. Way too high. The government need to reduce people’s housing costs (incentivising house building!) rather than continually upping people’s wages.

Exactly

I live between two High Streets (by which I mean, I’m not central so they are both equally distant from me). One is the charity shop dominated type that doesn’t have restaurants, and the other used to have quite a few restaurants.

Four of them have closed down and I think another two are going to.

I actually saw people walking along yesterday looking for somewhere to eat, and being puzzled because they had walked past the four … and found them closed.

I met one of the owners at a networking thing last year and the energy prices she was having to pay were absolutely shocking.

Interestingly, she never increased her prices on the lunchtime offers but only on the dinners.

I can’t see how this doom loop improves, sadly.

@Beece i’m glad you said that
I’m now surprised when people talk about minimum wage in a disparaging way, because it’s pretty decent IMHO.

Our local pub charges £4.20 for a pint of Coke Zero. That’s utterly ridiculous and I’d honestly rather have a glass of wine, considering it’s only about £1.50 more (still expensive but at least it’s alcohol)

I wouldn’t mind if what you got for your money was better - went to a local
place with friends last week and found it closed for refurbishing so we had to find somewhere else at short notice. We tried Prezzo which was half empty but were told they couldn’t accept us as they were understaffed. Ended up in another restaurant, food was nice but half the menu wasn’t available due to supplier issues and what we did order all arrived at different times. It just feels like places have given up but then I read about the issues they’re facing and think it’s not really surprising.