Over the coming weeks, restaurants and bars across Greater Manchester will be preparing for what should be one of the busiest trading periods of the year.
The 2024 European Championships start in a week. Then there are Wimbledon and the Olympic Games to take into account. Beer gardens will expand, beer and fizz will be consumed in large quantities, and a palpable buzz will soon sweep through the city.
But at the moment the catering industry is having a hard time. We’re used to restaurants and bars closing in the winter months, but it’s shocking to say the least to see how many have closed their doors in recent weeks.
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While a number of factors are at play – whether it’s the ongoing aftershocks of the pandemic, rising food, electricity and gas bills, or rising business rates and rents – this doesn’t make the trend any less worrying.
Looking back to May, a staggering number of companies have gone bankrupt. Every corner of Greater Manchester lost a restaurant, bar or cafe.
The language surrounding this was also deplorable. Owners have said they failed, fought hard or felt there was no other way out.
In the city, South American restaurant Peru Perdu closed its doors after five years, citing Covid lockdowns, rising costs of raw materials, heating and power, rising staff wages, general supplier costs and rent increases as just some of the reasons. It was also a similar story for The Cheese Court in Urmston.
This week Bernie’s grocery and canteen in Altrincham closed their doors. The owners expressed what many others in the industry must be feeling right now.
“It has been a long battle against an upward current that we have endured, adapted, agreed, changed, struggled and laughed along the way,” they wrote. Adding that a ‘terrible’ Easter with an ‘unprecedented’ reduction in trade and visitor numbers meant the writing was on the wall.
“The last breath was near, the dream was over, the curtain fell – in an increasingly competitive market, with the relentless obstacles that every business faces, it came to a standstill.”
This week it was Trove’s turn. The award-winning bakery, which kick-started the sourdough phenomenon here in Manchester, announced it could no longer continue trading after going bankrupt and racking up £1.6million in debt. Owners said they failed by trying to “keep something going” when they “should have put an end to it.”
Also this week, the team behind a cafe in Shaw said they ‘couldn’t carry on either’, closing the doors of a business that has become a vital lifeline for many in the community. And Grape N Grain in Littleborough, like Almost Famous a few weeks earlier, begged customers to use them or get rid of them, saying they were ‘having a lot of trouble with them’.
As if it wasn’t hard enough, you also have well-documented cases of dining and being boisterous. Last month, top chef Gary Usher was forced to ring up customers who left without paying their £370 bill at one of his restaurants in Manchester.
For those currently working in the hospitality industry, it must be a brutal feeling. But things are still opening up and there is a sad but inevitable turnaround in the industry. While one location is closing, another company is waiting in the wings to step up and give it a chance.
These openings should be celebrated, it speaks volumes about the resilience and ambition of the city, but also raises some questions about the sustainability of the sector.
For more than four years, the hospitality industry has been struggling with the consequences of the pandemic, a cost of living crisis and wage increases. It’s not surprising that so many have had to close, as the odds are stacked against them.
While government support has kept some afloat during the pandemic, calls for a VAT cut, which have gained momentum over the past twelve months, have fallen on deaf ears. Then there are rising rents and unsustainable business rates that are forcing even the most successful businesses to close shop.
It has never been easy to run a restaurant or bar, it is a tough job with long working hours, small margins and uncertain consumer habits. Given the current landscape, it’s easy to see why so many would have no choice but to end it.
There are also bigger questions that need to be addressed. Some don’t feel comfortable asking or confronting.
Prices in Great Britain rose by 2.3% in the period to April 2024. This is the lowest rate since September 2021, but still above the Bank of England’s inflation target of 2% – and consumers are still feeling the pressure.
In reality, many cannot afford to eat out regularly. And at the same time, restaurants and bars can’t afford to lower their prices; there is no real winner here. For many, eating out is reserved for special occasions and not for everyday use.
It’s not just meals out either. Getting to the city center can be time-consuming and expensive. Not only public transport must be taken into account, but also parking costs.
There is then a question about our night-time economy. Although we have one of Britain’s most vibrant and enviable nightlife, we are not a 24-hour city. You only have to look at the closing times, licensing times and transport links to see how we are not set up as a city that eats, drinks or parties until dawn.
And it’s not just the night. A staggering number of pubs have cut back their hours and days in a fight for survival as they try to stay afloat as the cost of living continues.
Rising energy costs are forcing pubs to close earlier than normal or stop serving food. The increase in the minimum wage is welcomed by many who run pubs, restaurants and bars and want to pay their staff fairly, but it also places an additional financial burden on small and medium-sized businesses, forcing some staff to leave their jobs to go to work. find a more stable income.
This raises the question of the sustainability of the restaurant and bar industry. For a long time, Manchester was a city built on historic pubs, but in recent years there has been an influx of new food concepts, which have attracted attention and acclaim beyond the region. But have we possibly reached a point of saturation, or can growth be sustained in the face of a lack of government support and ongoing operational challenges?
We’ll see beer gardens packed this summer whether or not the home countries star at the European Championships and Olympics, but the reality for restaurants and bars in Greater Manchester is that the situation still feels precarious. The summer months may give us a boost, but once they are over, the problems facing the sector will most likely still persist.