People don't earn enough to eat out anymore thanks to mass-immigration driving down wages.

>I remember first coming to this incredible city years ago, and in the past three decades I’ve seen many talented chefs carving out their reputations, open amazing restaurants — but now the industry is facing a bloodbath. I was 21 when I moved, and I’ve never seen it so bad. When I look ahead to April, when the Budget measures come in, I think those of us in hospitality are lambs to the slaughter.
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>Restaurants are already closing every other day. It devastates me because it seems no one in power is thinking ahead and considering where we’ll be in five years. We’re being suffocated. What’s happening to pubs is madness: there was already one shutting every day before these proposed rises in business rates and taxes. They’re being crippled. Restaurants aren’t faring much better — I live in Wandsworth and you can’t walk 10 metres without seeing another closure, another boarded-up front.
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>The changes in rates should be implemented much more carefully, with a much slower transition from what exists now to what the Government wants. The trouble is that the rises are coming in too quickly, at one of the worst possible moments. What the industry needs is more time to regenerate businesses and get into a cash-positive state. We want businesses to have growth, something none of us have had in the past five years. We’re barely standing. We need more oxygen — a reduction in rates of 20 or 25 per cent. That would give businesses a much-needed head start. I don’t think the Government has thought out its policy properly; it needs to be redone, revised, and ministers need to come back with a template for a much more supportive system.
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>The worst I can remember
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>>21865542
>It’s worth remembering it’s not long since the pandemic. There was incredible support with furlough, but everyone’s been treading water ever since — and so it’s turned into a ridiculous mess, because flat is now considered the new growth. It’s not just rates: the past few years have seen massive rises in utilities, ingredients and staff costs. Although I’m all for the rise in minimum wage, we deserve to be paid fairly. We don’t do 40-hour weeks; we don’t come in for seven-and-a-half hours a day with an hour off for lunch. We work hard. I’m not sure the Government realises how hard, to be honest.
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>That’s likely to be because it’s not working closely enough with us. I’ve lost confidence in its metrics because this has happened before. Look at what happened with the farmers, who brought London to a standstill over inheritance tax. Look at the U-turn the Government had to make — it had egg on its face. It happened because ministers thought out a plan without any proper involvement of anyone in the agricultural world. Here we are again, only this time with restaurants and pubs. Ministers are not working closely enough with us to get a proper handle on how things will fare if they insist on implementing these changes. It’s simply bad planning.
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>>21865545
>This is the worst I can remember things being, which is saying a lot. I remember September 2008, the Lehman Brothers going under and the financial crash. It wiped 35 per cent off our business overnight; corporate entertainment disappeared within 24 hours. No more ridiculous wine spends, no more private dining, no more chef’s tables. It made us pivot, reshape our menus and bounce back. And we did. Foot and mouth was another tough one: everyone was bloody terrified to step outside Heathrow. We weathered the storm there — but this is on a different level. Because it’s so soon after the pandemic, we’re already backed up. It wouldn’t be so bad if this was being implemented in a city that was hustling and bustling, but we’ve barely had a chance to stand up and now we’re back on our knees. With this business rate storm brewing, it’s going to be catastrophic.
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>A lost generation of chefs
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>The bigger problem is that, like us, customers are at their breaking point too. We have to tantalise guests — they vote with their feet — but there’s only so much we can keep adding on, and the rate and tax rises will only make things harder. When we opened Bread Street Kitchen in 2011, we encouraged families to come by saying that kids eat free. It’s something we’ve built our reputation on and we’re standing by it, but the Government is making it so much more difficult. It’s not just us. Even with fine dining, people don’t have £250 a head to spend; that’s £500 for two without any drink, for goodness’ sake. I saw Phil Howard’s Elystan Street is doing three courses for £26. That’s 1995 prices; they won’t be making a penny. We’ve got a three-course menu at Bread Street that’s £28 and we’re barely breaking even. With the increases coming, things like this are just not sustainable.

>>21865547
>Such difficult trading conditions don’t just stifle a restaurant’s ambitions for growth, they’re stifling confidence in individuals too. Two weeks ago I spent a couple of hours with a group of 85 chefs who had come down from all over the UK. The younger generation now have no interest in setting up their own businesses because of the jeopardy and level of pressure that’s on their shoulders. Instead, they were talking about becoming private chefs, doing social media — and these are chefs who have been cooking for 10 years. We’re all going to miss out on a generation of independent chefs and independent restaurants. Everyone loses. The Government’s plans simply will not work, I promise you now.

/ck/ers rise up!

>>21865537
no /pol/ pls. think of the taxes! something something worse than walstreet 2008 collapse, worse than foot mouth disease. fine dining at 250 pounds a pop died back in 2008.

>>21865534
I still remember when a restaurant refused to serve me during cohen 19. They don t need clients, same for any mom and pop store. You know who never refused my money ? Amazon, that s why I order everything from them and I avoid every restaurant or brick and mortar business.

>>21865552
>Amazon, that s why I order everything from them and I avoid every restaurant or brick and mortar business.
>>>/biz/shill pls
i literally cannot find anything cheap to eat on amazons. i eat more cheaply if i just walked to a 7-11 and bought their most expensive microwave food.

>>21865551
You do not want pol but the answer is very simple. The price of land is built in to the cost of eating out. As such you will never get it back regardless of temporary subsidies. Even with subsidies it will not grow.
The same thing will happen in america about 10 to 15 years from now. Again because british economic system is built by the US currrency system.

>>21865560
>look up Kool-Aid
>price is for a case
>picture is of a case
>weight is 1 small package
Yeah I'm not fucking buying anything I can't see and pay cash for.

>>21865551
>no /pol/ pls.
His jokes re. wages notwithstanding, population replacement is totally a thing in finer dining. As their population grows, the foreigners increasingly cater to their own diaspora, lowering the quality of their establishments as well as the overall dining experience for us natives. I've seen so many restaurants open in recent years that don't even have an English menu, or is not the main language on the printed materials (signs, menus, etc.), meaning they don't even want to cater to the natives they're replacing.

Plus, they absolutely will not patronize extant local/native establishments, so as their ratio in any area increases, the amount of patronage to local 'straunts decrease. So those either go under or they move, only to have that location quickly filled up by an aforementioned, basically street food, 'straunt or maybe a learing center.

restaurants?
The ruling class are setting up WW3 so they are not dragged into the streets and lynched.

>>21865534
>COVID happens
>People remember they can cook for themselves
>Spend two years getting good at it
>Food industry triggered that nobody is impressed by overpriced cheeseburgers anymore
I'm sympathetic since some people relied on restaurants for income. But it is surely better for society that people are cooking for themselves (likely producing healthier/lower calorie meals) and that the money going to restaurants can go to something more productive.
I like eating out as a hobby, but have gotten way more discerning about what I will spend my money on since learning to cook during COVID. You can't just slop out a couple of sandwiches and simply prepared proteins and veggies anymore.

>>21866373
Yeah, but all those gas stoves going can't be good for global warming.

>>21866373
I work upper retail management and everything is down since covid. People aren't making their own clothes at home. Its not that people learned how to cook, people are only cooking at home because it's cheaper. People are lazy mindless creatures. If prices came back to pre covid prices then they would flood food and retail.

>>21866432
Neither are all these immigrants producing tons of CO2 emissions. Tell you what, I'll give up my gas stove if we can load up all the brown people on rockets and fly them into the sun.

>>21866460
Then the Sun will be complaining about Earth's emissions.

>>21865534
I’m sure him doing a 2 day shoot with sloppy renovations, manufactured drama, but no actual teaching, for a modern episode of Kitchen Nightmares is an actual help.

Are UK business taxes different where they aren’t based on profit?

>Billionaires find out they cannot keep making the line go up if they making living quality so bad for everyone else and eliminate the middle class for their profit as billionaires cannot sustain businesses revenue as customers
Next time think about your greed before you go too far. I do not care what happens to you.

>>21866618
>I'm poor and bitter so billions must die
Have you tried not being poor?

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>>21865537
>>21866460
its actually mostly jews speculating and printing but the mass immigration is also their fault.