Hospitality Fights Back

Randy - why doesn't your place rename itself 'The Downing Street Garden'? Presumably, you'll be able to do anything you like then ;)
Haha. If only we had am actual garden.
Business is starting to pick up again after a slow start to year with people in the village and surrounding areas isolating. Looking forward to a bumper busy year ahead.
 
First proper Mother's Day for two years today for hospitality businesses in the UK. If everybody else has been as busy as we've been today (400 covers) then it's a great boost to kick off the rest of the year leading into the Easter holidays and then into Summer.
Saltburn was absolutely heaving today. Queues outside fish and chip shops and ice cream stalls. Of course the weather helped but nevertheless it will have been a good day for the traders.
 
Saltburn was absolutely heaving today. Queues outside fish and chip shops and ice cream stalls. Of course the weather helped but nevertheless it will have been a good day for the traders.
Great news.

I think even if the weather was poor people will still have ventured out given the occasion..
 
First proper Mother's Day for two years today for hospitality businesses in the UK. If everybody else has been as busy as we've been today (400 covers) then it's a great boost to kick off the rest of the year leading into the Easter holidays and then into Summer.
Sadly I can't see it lasting. Once the big bills kick in many people will have hard choices to make and hospitality spend will be a casualty.
Hope I'm wrong coz the Industry deserves a break after the last couple of years.
 
Sadly I can't see it lasting. Once the big bills kick in many people will have hard choices to make and hospitality spend will be a casualty.
Hope I'm wrong coz the Industry deserves a break after the last couple of years.
Heard the same type of things when businesses reopened with restrictions. People wouldn't come out. Granted some didn't but our place for example only ended up 20% down overall in 2021 compared to 2019.
 
Last edited:
Sadly I can't see it lasting. Once the big bills kick in many people will have hard choices to make and hospitality spend will be a casualty.
Hope I'm wrong coz the Industry deserves a break after the last couple of years.
I think it will, the people who could afford to go out before all this will find a way to go out to the places which managed to stay afloat. I expect some people will have been saving a fortune in not going out, and won't have been able to spend it all on painting and decorating.

The main closures and struggles will be for people's home bars I think, which will go back to being unused gyms and junk storage.

Last summer was ok in the restaurants and bars from what I could tell, as a punter, but there were still a hell of a lot of people being cautious back then, and the 20's-50's were just starting their jabs, or in-between 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

Attitude has moved with the risk, which it should, and most seem to have largely moved onto "I've had my jabs, protection is as good as it can be, I've done my bit and the new variants are hard to stop (impossible) anyway", so I think most will just move on and get on with it. I think how people act in supermarkets is a bit of a precursor to how people will look at going out in summer, most will not give it a second thought.

There might be a lull for like October-November, as people pay off summer, and build up funds to go out over Christmas, as we've not really had a derestricted Christmas for a while. A lot of last Christmas people seemed to be self restricting due to the Omicron unknown, having that again is unlikely I think.
 
Heard the same type of things when businesses reopened with restrictions. People wouldn't come out. Granted some didn't but our place for example only ended up 20% down overall in 2021 compared to 2020.
Good luck Randy.
 
I think it will, the people who could afford to go out before all this will find a way to go out to the places which managed to stay afloat. I expect some people will have been saving a fortune in not going out, and won't have been able to spend it all on painting and decorating.

The main closures and struggles will be for people's home bars I think, which will go back to being unused gyms and junk storage.

Last summer was ok in the restaurants and bars from what I could tell, as a punter, but there were still a hell of a lot of people being cautious back then, and the 20's-50's were just starting their jabs, or in-between 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

Attitude has moved with the risk, which it should, and most seem to have largely moved onto "I've had my jabs, protection is as good as it can be, I've done my bit and the new variants are hard to stop (impossible) anyway", so I think most will just move on and get on with it. I think how people act in supermarkets is a bit of a precursor to how people will look at going out in summer, most will not give it a second thought.

There might be a lull for like October-November, as people pay off summer, and build up funds to go out over Christmas, as we've not really had a derestricted Christmas for a while. A lot of last Christmas people seemed to be self restricting due to the Omicron unknown, having that again is unlikely I think.
I think the anxiety of Covid has more or less gone but if interest rates start biting mortgage payments and fuel bills/petrol diesel stay highish it might have an effect.
We'll see, hope I'm wrong and I really hope our fantastic bars and restaurants can recover.
 
I think the anxiety of Covid has more or less gone but if interest rates start biting mortgage payments and fuel bills/petrol diesel stay highish it might have an effect.
We'll see, hope I'm wrong and I really hope our fantastic bars and restaurants can recover.
Rates are not up that much, and have been very low for a long time.

If anyone has concerns now they should maybe be speaking to their financial advisor and maybe be looking at extending their mortgage term to lock in a good rate now. It wouldn't be as good as before of course, but would really reduce some risk.

I can see a bounce above say 2019 levels, but long term there's going to be a hit of some sort. I.e we might go to 110% over summer, then settle at 95%, but that 95% will probably be spread over less properties, as some didn't make it etc.

Would be interesting to know what levels local businesses were at in 2019 and have figures for 20,21 and 22 to compare it with.
 
I think it will, the people who could afford to go out before all this will find a way to go out to the places which managed to stay afloat. I expect some people will have been saving a fortune in not going out, and won't have been able to spend it all on painting and decorating.

The main closures and struggles will be for people's home bars I think, which will go back to being unused gyms and junk storage.

Last summer was ok in the restaurants and bars from what I could tell, as a punter, but there were still a hell of a lot of people being cautious back then, and the 20's-50's were just starting their jabs, or in-between 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

Attitude has moved with the risk, which it should, and most seem to have largely moved onto "I've had my jabs, protection is as good as it can be, I've done my bit and the new variants are hard to stop (impossible) anyway", so I think most will just move on and get on with it. I think how people act in supermarkets is a bit of a precursor to how people will look at going out in summer, most will not give it a second thought.

There might be a lull for like October-November, as people pay off summer, and build up funds to go out over Christmas, as we've not really had a derestricted Christmas for a while. A lot of last Christmas people seemed to be self restricting due to the Omicron unknown, having that again is unlikely I think.
October/November lull is normal in our industry too. January is usually quiet too but our January's seem to tick over quite nicely compared to other places. Probably a mixture of a great menu, easy access location and a well populated village.
 
October/November lull is normal in our industry too. January is usually quiet too but our January's seem to tick over quite nicely compared to other places. Probably a mixture of a great menu, easy access location and a well populated village.
Yeah, I thought it would be. Seems like a lot of incentives get put out for Jan, for bigger/ less niche places, to boost those numbers, but I bet much doesn't happen in Feb either. Village type places which are not too far away from big towns should usually end up ok, I expect.

I expect it will pick up big time soon, purely from what I expect to be doing, and different circles of mates also.
 
Had to pay 50p extra for peas with my gammon and chips the other day in the pub. What’s all that about?
 
October/November lull is normal in our industry too. January is usually quiet too but our January's seem to tick over quite nicely compared to other places. Probably a mixture of a great menu, easy access location and a well populated village.
Delighted for the industry Randy. My goodness you deserve all the luck this year after a battering the last two years. More power to eating out.
 
Back
Top