Pubs are facing cost pressures ‘similar to the 1950s’

The bi-annual report found that UK restaurants are struggling and food expenditure, staff costs/rent, plus rates, are the three biggest regular outlays.
Drink and energy costs were also named as factors that most increased overheads in the past six months.

Businesses have also been affected by a demand for discounting, recessionary pressures and rising VAT, which were found to be the biggest causes for changes to menu prices in the same period.

“From this data, we can see that the priorities of many restaurants haven’t changed significantly since the 1950s,” said Livebookings CEO Colin Tenwick. “Staff, rent and the price of raw materials are still major concerns, and restaurants don’t have the time to consider longer-term trends or changes that could help their businesses survive the recession.

“Restaurants not making use of online, mobile and social bookings is almost tantamount to adopting a no-children policy; they shut themselves off to roughly the same amount of potential business.

“Almost all other consumer-facing sectors have radically changed marketing strategies to respond to that, and now it’s time for all UK restaurants to do the same.”