In his weekly column, CODE’s founder Adam Hyman discusses how the Eat Out to Help Out scheme has changed the restaurant landscape and looks ahead to the future of the hospitality industry when the warmer weather is behind us.
Thursday is the new Monday. This was the phrase I heard the most this week from different restaurateurs across London as the Chancellor’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme was in its second week. The positive news is that it seems to be driving some much-needed business to our industry encouraging people to dine out.
Despite it clearly being marketed as a way to save some cash when going out for a meal in the early part of the week, more importantly it has shown the nation that it’s safe to do so and apart from the odd server wearing a mask and an added partition or two it’s pretty much what it was like before lockdown.
I don’t believe the blocker for people going out for a meal from when restaurants were allowed to reopen 4 July was a financial one, but more of a perception of whether it was going to be a safe experience and of course, an enjoyable one. Whether the Eat Out to Help Out scheme was a savvy move to indirectly do this, as well as get the economy moving, might be wishful thinking on my part but the main thing is that it does seem to be working.
But looking forward what does this mean for the industry for the rest of the year? August has always been a funny month for London with people heading to the likes of Mallorca, Mykonos or Mougins leaving the streets quieter and it easier to get a reservation at a restaurant. But this August has seen a displacement of how people are dining out due to the Eat Out to Help Out scheme with Thursday and Friday now the slower days as people have chosen Wednesday as their night to have dinner to take advantage of getting their discount off their bill.
But what will September behold? When schools (hopefully) return this should allow people to return to work in the thousands of empty offices across London giving the capital a much needed boost in people on the streets, meaning coffee shops should benefit from the caffeine run on people’s commutes, the sandwich and salad chains from the grab and go lunches and our city’s bars and pubs from post-work drinks. Will the business breakfasts and lunches that get expensed still exist in this post-COVID world? Let’s hope so. They’re a vital part to any restaurant’s trade in the West End and no doubt the restaurant PR and marketeers are working on some clever ideas to get people back into their restaurants. While tourism remains practically non-existent and theatre-goers having no curtain calls, something has to give.
I’ve heard from a number of restaurants that they’re going to continue to do their own version of Eat Out to Help Out for September and possibly October to keep the momentum going. While a necessary incentive to boost business, will this end up being like the furlough scheme where we’ll need to wean people off the discount mentality and bring them back to dining normally without £10 off their bill?
The beginning of September always reminds me of heading back to school fresh from a summer off, with a new school uniform, a shiny pencil case and butterflies in my stomach as to what the new school year will bring. As we tick off the August days in our calendar, I feel the same sense of trepidation this for what September brings for the hospitality industry.
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