‘The hospitality industry is on life support... the government mustn’t switch off the machine.’

Now that we’re seeing the back of lockdown number two, what does the future hold for the hospitality industry?

Stavros Papadakos has been working as the head chef at one of Soho’s trendiest restaurants, La Bodega Negra, since early 2019. The 36-year-old now lives in fear that his years of mastering skills in cooking for Michelin star restaurants could all be in jeopardy. Since March of this year, Papadakos has been on furlough awaiting his arrival back to work. However, in light of the second lockdown “the business has not been able to cope with its accruing central London rent and rates at over £40,000 a month”, he says. “It has had to make the decision to remain closed”, as the restaurant edges towards the danger zone of liquidation. As a result, Papadakos fears the inevitability of being made redundant and left with only the skills suitable for a role within the hospitality industry. “Now there are no jobs out there for people like myself with narrow specialities. I know how to cook, how to manage a restaurant and do the accounting for it but apart from that I can not do anything else,” says Papadakos. Like many others, he will join the statistic of unemployment as this country ploughs into an economic crisis.

Since the fourth of July, pubs, bars, restaurants and the like have been building their momentum back up from the set back of the first lockdown. Over these months the industry has been faced with increasing obstacles, challenging their ability to survive and make a profit, with around 20,000 restaurants predicted to remain closed for the foreseeable future, the Office for National Statistics reports. From the two metre rule to the rule of six, groups of one household to the 10pm curfew, have all contributed to the devastating situation that the industry finds itself in; tackling rents, rates, mental health and the loss of around 500,000 employees since January, according to the hospitality software provider, Fourth. The second lockdown couldn’t have been more unwelcome.

This is why freelance hospitality marketing and PR consultant, Rachel Harty, decided to take action. Harty explains how she founded the organisation ‘HospoDemo’ in early October, to arrange peaceful protests “as a reaction to the restrictions that were put in place by the government [affecting the hospitality industry] in response to the coronavirus pandemic”. Her first and only protest so far took place on the 19th of October. “We had around 600 protesters attend which was more than we were expecting but another brilliant side of it was that we had some really big industry legends come along, people like Yotam Ottolenghi, Jason Atherton and lots of others all came to show their support,” she says. “So having the backing of them really gave us a lot more credibility.” The demo consequently was covered in every national newspaper and on their broadcast news channels as well.

Harty is striving to instigate as much support from the government for the hospitality industry as possible. She fears the future prospects for the industry and anticipates a huge factor that’s going to massively affect it is “that Christmas bookings are often what gets businesses through Q1 and Q2”, the first two financial quarters of a year for businesses. “Even if they are allowed to open after the second of December, I’m sure they’re not going to be allowed to have parties and events bookings, especially not of more than six,” she says, reiterating the need for more financial industry-specific support, such as working with landlords to agree on a scheme to reduce rent according to business’s profitability.

Sophie Herbert, the marketing and sales director for the European hospitality company, Beds and Bars, says: “We know that people are still socialising regardless of the restrictions, whether it be behind closed doors or at house parties. If they’d allowed bars, pubs and clubs to operate safely, beyond the realm of curfews and shutting us down, we could’ve delivered that experience but in a responsible way.” Herbert shares the consensus many others in the industry feel, that “people aren’t really following the rules this time around anyway”, so is it really worth the damage caused to the industry?

Nigel Evans, Conservative MP and president of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, fears for the damage to “the pub, the heart of our community”. However, he feels we should remind ourselves of the first and foremost reason for these measures: “We want to protect the NHS, but, we want to protect jobs at the same time and it seems to me that the focus has really been on saving lives. It's just getting that right balance and only time will tell whether the government have got that right, but you haven’t got balance when you go into total lockdown that’s for certain.”

Unlike many others, Jillian MacLean CEO and Founder of the restaurant and bar business Drake & Morgan, see’s opportunities for the industry after setting up her business amidst the 2008 recession. “Of course, you don’t waste a good crisis. I think the Chinese word for crisis means opportunity.” MacLean analyses changing customer behaviours and points out the opportunities she thinks businesses must take. She says: “The working week has changed and customer behaviours have too. As the Chief Executive of Pret said, ‘Whilst the customers are gone from the skyscrapers you then must go to the customers’ and I agree with that, you’ve just got to evolve your proposition.” MacLean is now developing a takeaway and delivery service, with the optimistic mindset that increasing opportunities and innovations are just around the corner for the industry.