When the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what the greatest challenge was in politics, he famously answered: “Events, dear boy, events.”
It feels like that might be a pretty good answer for restaurateurs, publicans, and many others working in the hospitality industry lately, as we enter another period of transport strikes.
There have been quite a lot of events recently: health events, royal events, political events, geopolitical events, financial events. The rail strikes alone are reported to have cost the hospitality sector £3bn since the start of the disputes in 2022. This isn’t to say that the strikes don’t affect other industries, or people at home, or indeed that the strikes shouldn’t go ahead at all. But the action does hit an industry hard that has been suffering since 2020.
My restaurant group, Hawksmoor, isn’t immune from these strikes — but as my grandfather used to say, we’re big enough and ugly enough to look after ourselves. The impact on small businesses up and down the country — especially in city centres, which rely on the work crowd — is much more severe, as it is on hundreds of thousands of hard-working people in hospitality.
These problems then ripple through the wider economy. When restaurants are quiet, they buy less meat, fish, vegetables, wine, and beer. They pay fewer taxes. The knock-on effects are legion.
Perhaps some can do something about it. At Hawksmoor, for instance, we’re running an offer for steak frites for £15 on strike days, running from today until the end of the month to give people a chance to come in and have a special hour or two — even if there isn’t a strike on. We won’t make a profit from it, but our restaurants and our teams will be busy.
But many won’t be able to do likewise; for countless businesses, margins are already so thin that they can’t discount. In fact, it’s harder than that. They’re caught between the desperate need to raise prices and the laudable desire to keep them low and keep people coming through the doors.
Or, perhaps, they don’t have enough staff to be able to be significantly busier. Many restaurants’ reaction to quieter or more volatile times is to cut back on costs, and staff is one of the options. Which, in turn, feeds another worry: that people won’t look at so much of hospitality as the wonderful place to work that it is. Instead, they’ll choose other industries, or flock only to those employers that can more clearly offer stability. I like to think Hawksmoor is one.
I’m left with this, really. I hope people move their rumps and get to Hawksmoor for cheap steak frites, but I also hope they flock to small, independent restaurants. I’ve no doubt that would be hugely appreciated.
