Now, don’t get me wrong, the Government has done its level best to take a very long run up before delivering a kicking that many are struggling to get up from, but chatting with a few operators last week, particularly one who is walking away from the sector, I do wonder if we’re the architects of some of our own misery.
Day in, day out, I hear businesses complaining about empty venues, dead days of the week, and the fact consumers just aren’t coming out like they used to.
But to be honest, are we actually giving them a reason to?
We talk about the pub industry as being resilient and quick to adapt and innovate, but I wonder, have we taken our eye off the ball a little of late.
These days, any trip down a high street in the first few days of a week will see a sea of pubs with closed signs on the door. We’ve cut opening hours to the bone as we bemoan the lack of people coming out on quiet week nights.
Enticing customers in
But, let me pose you this question - why would they? What are you doing to entice consumers out to your businesses?
In the main, the bulk of operators response to the challenges we’re facing is to cut, cut, cut. Cut the offer, cut staff, cut the opening hours.
Any customer thinking, let’s go out for a cheeky pint and a bite to eat on a Monday will find them facing that said sea of closed signs, and they’re not going to bother again.
Speaking to one operator the other day, she said she’d kept open on a Monday and was heaving because everyone else was closed. For awhile. Then people stopped coming out because the lack of choice was putting them off.
Other customers are being asked to drink up and leave pubs at 9.30pm because they’re the last in, and the operator wants to shut up shop. Are those people likely to come again?
I get it. I get that staying open on a wet Monday night until 11pm costs money and the costs are ridiculous now.
Get creative
But rather than waving the white flag and shutting the doors, shouldn’t we be doubling down, get those lights on, get the taps pouring, organise something that will actually entice punters off the sofa for that cheeky week night out.
I know it’s not going to change the fact the Government are bending us over, and the utility companies are rinsing you like a dirty dish cloth, but we’ve said many times in the past, the only people that are going to help us out now are ourselves.
We hear people shouting to customers “Use us or lose us” - but are we giving them a reason to use us?
So let’s get creative. Let’s stop the backwards slide, the slow death of those early week day close signs, that slippery slope to decline.
Or we can shut the door, sit back, blame the Government and the customers who have apparently abandoned us and bemoan our lot on social.
I know which I would choose.