Local businesses in the heart of the city are struggling to compete with pop-up Fringe facilities from Underbelly as some complain that the festival is leaving them “closing early”.
As the Festival Fringe continues throughout August, the public are presented with plenty of options to eat out in between shows. Food stalls and bars have been set up at Bristo Square and George Square.
However, some local businesses are finding the competition to be putting the squeeze on their livelihoods, at a time when a boost in trade is crucial for some businesses.
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We spoke to the manager at Kauai, a cafe at the top of Middle Meadow Walk, who are struggling to compete with Underbelly, they said: “We haven’t had the normal Fringe trade before but we know that we should be expecting about four times the amount of trade that we would get normally but we are not doing anywhere near that.
“Last week on one of the seven days we got to our target but other than that we aren’t getting what we would expect.
“We are having to compromise on opening hours, we have to be quite flexible with that. So if trade isn’t busy on a certain day we might have to close. Electricity costs are high, the cost of living is high as well, which means we just can’t afford to stay open if no one is coming in.
“Ideally we want to stay open till 8pm every day in the Fringe. We are doing that on weekends but on weekdays we are closing at 3.30-4pm. So that’s five hours less than we wanted to.
“We have been taking down tasters and discount cards and if we take stuff to them then that does help. It is literally just a case of everyone staying there. It’s convenient, the shows are there, there’s food and drink and they just don’t need to come up this way. It isn’t a case that they don’t want the product, it’s just not as convenient.”
Other business owners, too, are finding that their restaurants are quieter with the Fringe business nearby. We spoke to Paula, the manager of Boteco Do Brasil, who says that while they are busy when they operate as a nightclub, business is quieter during the day.
Paula said: “To be honest, it’s both a positive and negative point of view. It is a competition, which is never great, but there is a positive side as well because there are lots of shows going on. Whenever shows finish we are just right in front of them. It might be a bit of competition but there are people around.
“Last year was more busy than this year. This year, it’s quite a quiet morning and I think we were expecting it to be a little bit more busy. However, the amount of people coming to the nightclub is good. Restaurant wise we were expecting a little bit more people but in the night it’s still really busy.
“Until last year the village wasn’t here and I remember the terrace being hectic every single hour of the day, especially on the weekend. At the moment it’s not the same like people can just have a table for half an hour because we just have to get more people seated. It’s more chilled this year because we are seeing loads of people going down to the festival which is taking a majority of the customers from local businesses. “
We spoke to one business owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, who said: “Four weeks before the the Fringe, and underbelly opened up the huge village as part of the Fringe and this has taken huge business away from local traders who pay business rates and rent.
“Many cafe business rate payers are not going to pay the rates as the streets are filthy, never get cleaned and we get no help from the council except officers patrolling and continually hassling cafes not to take up too much space on the pavements.”
An Underbelly Spokesperson said: “We know how important the Fringe is for local businesses to bounce back post-pandemic. All of our food traders are small independent businesses from around Edinburgh and the vast majority of our hospitality staff are also locals. The demand to eat, drink and socialise is huge right now across the city and we're very pleased that the Fringe activity is drawing tens of thousands of people to this part of the city and in turn local businesses in the area."
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