The social and economic impact of hospitality losses on the local  community...

Last night I couldn’t believe it when I read Master Chef winner Jamie Scott’s restaurant, The Newport, was closing at the start of April. My absolute favourite place. A combination of fine dining at accessible prices, over the water from Dundee, and the hub of quality and social interaction within Newport on Tay. 

This comes a month after the sudden closure, and administration, of The Boat Brae, a beautiful family-friendly pub and restaurant within the same village. The loss of these two establishments will be felt in a big way for this beautiful village. And this won’t be unique to Newport, there will be many local communities, small towns and villages throughout Scotland, and the UK, where losing hospitality venues will have a huge local economic and social impact. 

Living in Edinburgh, and visiting Newport every couple of weeks, I have the advantage of many hospitality venues on my doorstep, but I have also seen many well-known brands and faces come and go. Not to mention another favourite shutting its doors last year: New Chapter restaurant. 

When I worked for ResDiary we compiled research into the state of the industry, as we had seen more closures than ever before, and it was important to understand the myriad of reasons and complications for the crisis that we are now seeing in the UK. ResDiary is doing a good job of keeping on top of this research from their growing number of restaurants using their tech. 

Here are some of the key challenges that I’ve been made aware of:

• Rising costs and inflation, with significant open vacancies across various roles including front of house and cleaning staff, leading to increased employment cost and impact on diner experience;
• Sky-high energy prices, record food and drink inflation, ongoing labour shortages, and climbing interest rates contribute to a challenging operating environment;
• Celebrity chefs and restaurateurs highlighting unsustainable increases in utility bills (something Jamie Scott also highlighted as a reason for closure), combined pressures of Brexit, Covid-19, the cost of living crisis, and soaring energy bills resulting in significant financial losses and business closures.

And this follows through to the dining experience: 

• Diners are faced with an increasing number of restaurants only open a few days a week, and with limited hours; 
• Obvious cuts are being made to service quality and quality of products i.e. from my recent visit at The Bonnie Badger I noticed a few cuts compared with four years ago, but it didn’t impact the quality of food and drink. Only the service, apart from a couple of people, felt more informal, plastic water bottles in the room, no petit fours left afterwards. 
• Reduced menus or wine stock
• Stress and strain within the establishment showing through - all of which are completely understandable! And not a complaint - more an observation that the impact is being felt on both sides of the fence. 

What can be done? The impact being felt in hospitality is huge - on the economics of the country and sociability in local areas. There’s also a risk of polarising the type of restaurants popping up and being sustained - big cheaper chains and high-end establishments. With the inevitable middle getting squeezed! 

There is perhaps a lot being done, but more needs to be, done to lobby the government for support aimed at:

• Supporting the reopening, recovery, and resilience of the hospitality sector, including measures to build a more financially stable, dynamic, innovative, and environmentally friendly sector;
• Improving tenant-landlord relationships and developing hospitality-led regeneration hubs to revitalise high streets and make them more attractive destinations;
• Providing clear and rewarding career pathways, promoting vocational training, and encouraging innovation and investment in the sector;
• Championing the sector's role in enhancing community wellbeing and ensuring the UK's high streets remain diverse, vibrant, and appealing.

This is a complex problem, which needs urgently tackled and awareness raised more extensively! If you haven’t guessed, I’m passionate about hospitality and its success. If anyone wants to talk to me further about this - I’d be delighted to see how I might be able to help in some small way. 

My reading sources:

- The Drinks Business

- UKHospitality

- GOV.UK

- ResDiary

- Photocredit: The Newport Restaurant from Instagram.