In this week’s column, CODE founder Adam Hyman discusses the importance of rallying to protect our industry and reflects on two articles he read this week.
For those of you who know me well, there are two leaders who I take a lot of inspiration from. They’re both entrepreneurs, visionaries and people I am lucky to call mentors. In the space of less than 24-hours they have both written powerful and compelling articles calling for proper leadership from governments, some much-needed common sense and actual fixed guidelines for us to follow so we can start to live our lives again and make sure our industry doesn’t get eroded overnight.
Penned from London for Friday’s Evening Standard, restaurateur Jeremy King calls for our government and London’s City Hall to unite and find leadership to focus on fixing the absurdly low office occupancy in London, the ticking timebomb over hospitality leases and the urgency for turnover rents along with reversing the deplorable extension and increase in the Congestion Charge.
While over in Zurich, Monocle founder Tyler Brûlé asks us to actually evaluate everyday risks we take (life is full of them after all), the non-sensical approach to quarantining, the ridiculous idea that suddenly every business can work remotely overnight and why we can’t have a pepper mill in a restaurant.
I’m not here to get political but the shocking lack of leadership and clear messaging throughout this pandemic has left many of us looking to others for guidance, reassurance and someone to rally around. Many of our industries figure heads – who have huge media pulling power (yes Jamie, yes Gordon, I’m looking to you) – have disappeared. Throughout lockdown Jonathan Downey rose to the challenge to create Hospitality Union and created an online community via WhatsApp to offer advice, opinion and some much-needed comradery, as well as lobby Government alongside UK Hospitality and the brilliant work its CEO Kate Nicholls did to put our industry in the much-needed spotlight.
I’m a born and bred Londoner. It’s the city I’ve lived in all my life and I will always call it home. Of course, like any city, it has its challenges, problems and issues, but over the past decade it has become the best food city in the world. We embrace diversity, independence, quirkiness, ambition. We’ve developed a palate – from carabineros to jollof rice to tacos. Visitors from around the world flock to eat in our capital, visit our theatres, galleries and museums and stay in our hotels. This not only makes it a desirable place to live and work but also draws in huge investment from global businesses and brands. Let us not forget the reliance on suits for expensed business lunches, venturing further south on the wine list and the endless events, client entertaining and parties that they use our restaurants and hotels for.
For many of us, September will be a crunch month for our businesses. Now more than ever we need to fly the flag for our industry and London. It’s time to rally.
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