The pub chain JD Wetherspoon has reported soaring sales in recent weeks, as cash-strapped consumers look for cheaper food and drinks amid high inflation and the cost of living crisis.
Wetherspoon’s, which runs just under 830 pubs across the UK and Ireland, said its sales had risen by 11% in the 10 weeks since the start of May, compared with the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.
Striking an optimistic tone, the company said its sales of beverages and meals were also up 11.5% compared with a year earlier, as the chain shrugged off concerns that its customers were tightening their belts.
The boost to its sales appears to have accelerated in recent weeks, after lauding a record Easter and successful series of May bank holiday weekends.
Shares in JD Wetherspoon jumped by 10% in morning trading on Wednesday.
Wetherspoon’s was not the only hospitality business to sound positive about the outlook for hospitality venues.
The Loungers chain – which runs more than 230 all-day cafe, bar and restaurant venues under the Lounge, Cosy Club and Brightside brands – welcomed record sales in the year to mid-April in its full-year results.
Nick Collins, the chief executive of Loungers, said the “UK consumer remains positive”, noting that inflationary pressures “are diminishing” for the business, while it is finding it less challenging to recruit staff.
Collins said the company had plans to continue expanding: “We are proud to be making a positive contribution to high streets and communities across the UK and there are hundreds more locations around the country for us to target,” he added.
Wetherspoon’s said its results during the current financial year had been boosted by its decision to sell, close or surrender to the landlord 28 pubs, resulting in a net cash inflow of £6.5m. It opened three new pubs during the same period.
However, the company dismissed suggestions that it had shut the venues to raise cash, insisting that most of the closures were in places where there was another Wetherspoon’s pub nearby.
The Wetherspoon’s chair, Tim Martin, said the company expected its full-year profit to be in line with market expectations.
He added that improving sales and an expectation that costs including energy bills would continue to fall meant the company anticipated “an improved outcome for the next financial year”.
However, Wetherspoon’s warned in a trading update that the UK economy was “at a crossroads”, after the pandemic-related lockdowns and closures in the past few years.
The company, which criticised government restrictions designed to reduce the spread of Covid during the pandemic and warned of the impact on hospitality businesses, also questioned the length and scope of the UK’s Covid inquiry.
It asked whether the inquiry would “result in the obfuscation of the essential question as to whether the lockdowns and restrictions produced beneficial outcomes, and whether they had positive effects on health, even disregarding wider economic factors”.
