Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, based in London
August 10, 2022
Figures from accountants UHY Hacker Young show that 1,406 restaurants in the UK closed their doors in the 12 months to May, up 64 per cent on the previous year.
Restaurants are faring worse than the wider hospitality industry, which recorded a 56 per cent rise in insolvencies over the same period.
Research by the same company discloses that about two thirds of the country’s top 100 restaurants are operating at a loss. Debt repayments, lack of staff caused by Brexit and rising energy bills are being blamed.
The sector was looking forward to a recovery in profits after the pandemic, says UHY Hacker Young, but this is now threatened by rising food inflation and a fall in consumer confidence as the cost of living crisis bites.
Peter Kubik, partner at UHY Hacker Young, said many restaurateurs were anxious about further falls in demand as Britain moves closer to recession.
“It may be a case of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’ for many UK restaurant groups,” Mr Kubik said.
“They expected, and needed, higher consumer spending as we put Covid further behind us, but this spending is now likely to fall when it is needed most.
“Pressure is rising on the restaurant sector every day. More and more of them are shutting their doors as a result.
“Restaurants that only just managed to survive the pandemic thanks to government support are now facing fresh challenges in the form of rising inflation, a post-Brexit labour shortage and consumers who simply cannot afford to spend as much.”
I don’t doubt the UHY Hacker Young findings. Walk down any high street in Britain and you will find a boarded-up restaurant or two or three.
But I would insist that it is not so simple. At the start of his TV show, Kitchen Nightmares, chef Gordon Ramsay usually does two things. He inspects the cleanliness of the kitchen and he looks at the length of the menu.
Gordon Ramsay is famed for his brutal diagnoses of failing restaurants.
Invariably, in a restaurant in crisis, a filthy, unhygienic kitchen points to a lack of discipline, to staff, an executive chef in particular, not being on top of the business.
It is amazing how often the former is accompanied by a long, over-elaborate menu, signifying a management whose ambition outweighs their ability to deliver.
Where I live, I can say with a degree of certainty which restaurants are doing well and which are destined to fail.
Walks with my dogs at night and peering through the windows (I know, I can’t help myself, it’s the nosiness in me) normally confirms the assessment.
I can tell you that the local branch of Cote is pretty busy; and as for the expensive gastropub, the jury is still out — despite it having recently been the subject of a rave press review. The upmarket Asian fusion joint is doing all right, while the family-run, always friendly, Thai is booming.
It is clear: some places are thriving, others less so, and some a lot less so. Into this last, doomed category falls the new, “gourmet” Indian restaurant on the corner. It surely cannot have long to go.
What this says is that those restaurants that apply rigour and discipline, that know their audience and treat them well, will get through and even turn in healthy profits; those that don’t will suffer and perish.
It is fascinating, though, why they don’t see it for themselves. On my evening perambulation, I will observe the staff at the empty Indian restaurant, sitting at a table at the back looking forlorn.
A recipe for restaurant success
I would like to take them and walk them a few hundred metres along the road. They could stare, presumably open-mouthed, at a restaurant where the tables are taken by people eating, not by staff with nothing to do.
They could examine the shorter menu (the Indian one runs to pages and pages). They would be able to compare the pricing and ask themselves why their prices are so much higher and is that difference justified or is it them being greedy?
They could look at the lighting and ambience, and ask why is the Indian room so brightly lit when the crowded restaurant’s is softer? Oh, and one more, they could count the tables and ponder why, in their restaurant, they’re all uncomfortably squashed together and here, they are not?
Could it be that they want to cram in the customers, that they set out to chase a buck, instead of delivering a good experience?
Many restaurants fall into the trap of trying to cram in too many tables. EPA
None of this has anything to do with Brexit or the climbing cost-of-living. It has everything to do with common sense, with business acumen, an eye for detail and putting the customer first.
To turn it round would not require the redoubtable Ramsay to go in, turn the lights down, chuck out several tables and chairs, crop the menu by two thirds and reduce the prices (then, he could tackle the kitchen, because if that is the restaurant, you are left wondering what the back of house is like).
On second thoughts, it might need Ramsay. Because the current management clearly do not see what everyone else can see. Heads must be knocked together, fast, before the badly-run Indian joint is marked down, wrongly, as yet another failure caused by Brexit and the economic backdrop.
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side 8 There are eight players per team 9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one. 5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls 4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
