‘It’s not about big brands’: how will UK casual dining fare after Covid?
As the pandemic slashed through the UK’s restaurants like a sharpened cleaver, one slice of the industry fared far worst than most: pizza and burger chains.
Byron, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Italian chains Strada and Carluccio’s were among the casual dining brands forced to shed dozens of sites as repeated lockdowns and other Covid restrictions left the chains haemorrhaging cash.
A net 11.4% of chain restaurants, or about 700 outlets, have disappeared since March 2020, according to the Local Data Company (LDC) which monitors 3,000 areas across England, Scotland and Wales.
Italian and pizza restaurants chains shrunk by a net 22% or 448 sites during two years of the pandemic, while American-themed chains fell by a net 21% or 151 outlets, figures from the Local Data Company (LDC) reveal.
Despite the heartbreak for those made redundant, the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay credited the Covid-19 pandemic with clearing away “crap” restaurants. Ramsay this week argued that there might now be a new beginning as the experience of lockdown, where families killed time by cooking more from scratch at home, as well as raising appreciation of well-made food.
In an interview with the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls in Radio Times, Ramsay described the shrunken chains as: “Well, just shitholes in a prime position and taking advantage because they’re in a great location, and they’ve got the footfall. But now we’ve wiped the slate clean, which is good.”
Ramsay should know about the perils of the pandemic: his own chain of 25 London restaurants lost £5.1m in the year to the end of August 2020.
The trade association UK Hospitality said almost 700,000 jobs were affected at the peak of the pandemic – a combination of job losses, plus roles that were
Read more on theguardian.com
