A Belfast restaurant has revealed that his energy bills have rocketed from £31,000 a year to £9,500 in just one month.
Bob McCoubrey, who runs Mourne Seafood Bar, on Bank Square in the city centre as well as a number of other businesses, has said that while he will survive, many others in the industry will not.
Hospitality Ulster has warned that the industry is in crisis with the cost of "crippling businesses and will result in more closures and job losses". It is calling for more help with energy costs, a VAT cut and an immediate rates holiday.
Read more: Belfast cafe closes just a year after opening due to rising energy bills
In a tweet, Mourne Seafood Bar said: "Our electric/gas was 31k for the whole of 2021. Last month alone it was 9.5k. And that was without any heating on."
Mr McCoubrey, said the latest bill wasn't a shock at it has been "building all year so we've been used to it".
"When I speak to other businesses, they are seeing the same problems but I don't think policy makers really grasp what's coming down the tracks at us and that's why I put out the tweet," he told the BBC.
Mr McCoubrey who has previously been vocal about adapting to Covid rules throughout the pandemic, added: "We can't survive paying 20% VAT, it's one of the highest in Europe and so we're hoping in the same way as when Covid hit, the government realised and dropped VAT down to 5%. If they don't do that then the industry will be in serious problems.
“Luckily we've been in this business for a long time. Any loans and debts that we have aren't secured on our homes. But younger people who have opened their first restaurant, they have debts secured on their homes.
"Not only are they facing losing their business, they're also going to lose their homes which is very stressful as you can imagine. As a business, we're confident that we will survive but so many others out there can't and won't survive this.
"What will happen is restaurants will cut down their opening hours and only open at peak times, which has knock on implications for staff who are also facing an increase in their domestic bills so it's bad all round."
Prime Minister Liz Truss last week announced long-awaited plans to tackle soaring energy bills, with a focus on capping prices and boosting domestic energy supplies.
Under the government's "energy price guarantee", bills for the average annual household will go no higher than £2,500 over the next two years.
The measures are still expected to come into effect for Great Britain as planned from October 1, but it remains unclear when support for Northern Ireland will commence.
The uncertainty stems from the region having a separate energy market from Great Britain and there is currently no fully functioning devolved government at Stormont.
When asked if he felt Stormont politicians get the pressure that businesses here are facing, Mr McCoubrey said "some do, some don't and some choose to ignore it".
"It feels like we’re on the deck of the Titanic, we’re heading towards a massive iceberg and you look back in the wheelhouse and there’s nobody in there.
"A big worry among my contemporaries would be that there'll be an announcement next week, the usual thing in London that 'this is what we're going to do' then the next thing will be 'oh we've no way to implement that in Northern Ireland'.
"They'll sit down, set up another task force and it'll take months and by then it'll be too late for many businesses, they will have gone under.
"We’ve come out of Covid and most restaurants and hospitality businesses only survived because of bounce-back loans and also they have deferred tax payments to HMRC."
He added: "It’s just becoming impossible and I’d say most hospitality businesses at the minute in Northern Ireland would probably be technically insolvent if the creditors asked for all the bills to be paid tomorrow morning. That's how bad it is."
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