They should be thriving, instead they’re struggling. What does that say about Manchester?

Over the next few weeks, restaurants and bars across Greater Manchester will be gearing up for what should be one of the busiest trading periods of the year. Euro 2024 kicks off in a week. Then there’s Wimbledon and the Olympics to factor in too. Beer gardens will swell, beer and fizz will be consumed in copious amounts, and there will be a palpable buzz about town for the foreseeable. But right now, hospitality is struggling. We’re used to the shuttering of restaurants and bars in the winter months, however, seeing so many close their doors in recent weeks has been jarring to say the least. READ MORE: It was an Ancoats icon… now it’s closed its doors with a £1.6million debt While a number of factors come into play – whether that’s the continued aftershocks of the pandemic, increasing food, electricity and gas bills, or rising business rates and rents – it doesn’t make the trend any less concerning. If we look back at May, a staggering amount of businesses bowed out. Every corner of Greater Manchester lost either a restaurant, bar or café. The language around these has been saddening too. Owners have said they have failed, fought hard, or felt that there was no other way out. In the city, South American restaurant Peru Perdu shut after five years citing Covid lockdowns, the rising cost of raw materials, heating and power, increasing staff wages and general supplier costs and rent increases, as just some of the reasons. It was a similar story for The Cheese Court in Urmston too. This week, Bernie’s a grocery and canteen in Altrincham closed their doors. Its owners articulated what many others in the sector must be feeling right now. “It’s been a long slog against an uphill current that we’ve weathered, adapted, concurred, changed, struggled and laughed with along the way,” they wrote. Adding that a ‘terrible’ Easter with an ‘unprecedented’ reduction in trade and footfall meant the writing was on the wall. “A last breath was near, the dream was over, the curtain falling – in an ever more competitive market, with the relentless obstacles every business faces it ground to a halt.” This week, it was Trove’s turn. The award-winning bakery, which kicked off the sourdough phenomenon here in Manchester, announced it could go on no more, after it went into liquidation, having accrued £1.6m in debts. Owners said they failed by trying to ‘keep something going’, when they ‘should have ended it’. Also this week, the team behind a café in Shaw said they ‘couldn’t go on’ too, closing the doors of a business that has become a vital lifeline for many in the community. And Grape N Grain in Littleborough, like Almost Famous a few weeks previously, pleaded with customers to use them or lose them – saying they were ‘struggling big time’. If things weren’t hard enough, you’ve also got well-documented cases of dining and dashing. Last month, top chef Gary Usher was forced to call out customers who left without settling their £370 bill at one of his Manchester restaurants. For those working in hospitality right now, it must feel relentless. But things are still opening and there is a sad, but inevitable churn to the industry – as one unit closes, another business is waiting in the wings to step and give it a go. These openings should be celebrated, it speaks volumes about the city’s resilience and ambition, but it raises several questions about the sustainability of the sector. For over four years now, hospitality has had to grapple with the impact of the pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis and wage increases. It’s not surprising that so many should close given that the odds have been stacked against them. While government support during the pandemic kept some afloat, a call for reduction in VAT, which gathered momentum over the last 12 months, has fallen of deaf ears. Then there’s rising rents and unsustainable business rates forcing even the most successful businesses to shut shop. It’s never been easy to run a restaurant or bar, it’s a hard graft with long hours, slim margins and precarious consumer habits to weather. Given the current landscape, it’s easy to see why so many would have no choice but to call it a day. There’s bigger questions to tackle too. Some are not comfortable to ask or confront. Prices in the UK rose by 2.3% in the year to April 2024. This is the lowest rate since September 2021, but it is still above the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target – and consumers are still feeling the pinch. In reality, many cannot afford to be eating out on a regular basis. And at the same time, restaurants and bars cannot afford to lower their prices – there’s no real winner here. Dining out for many is reserved for special occasions rather than an every-day occurrence. It’s not just the meals out either. Getting into the city centre can be time-consuming and expensive. There’s not only public transport to consider but the cost of parking too. There’s then a question about our night-time economy. Whilst we have one of the most vibrant and enviable night-life scenes in the UK, we are not a 24-hour city. One only needs to look at closing times, licensing hours and transport links to see how we’re not set up to be a city that eats, drinks or parties until dawn. And it’s not just the night time either. A staggering number of pubs have cut their hours and days in a fight for survival as they bid to stay afloat as the cost-of-living crisis continues. Rising energy costs are forcing pubs to close earlier than usual or stop serving food. The increase in minimum wage, while welcomed by many who run pubs, restaurants and bars who want to pay their staff fairly, is also creating an additional financial burden on small and medium-sized businesses, resulting in some staff having to leave their jobs to find more stable income. This begs the question about the sustainability of the restaurant and bar industry. For a long time, Manchester was a city built on historic pubs but in recent years there’s been an influx on new food concepts, which has attracted attention and acclaim outside of the region – but have we potentially reached a point of saturation, or can our growth be sustained when there’s a lack of government support and ongoing operation challenges? We’ll see beer gardens packed out this summer whether or not the home nations shine in the Euros and Olympics, but the reality for restaurants and bars across Greater Manchester is that the situation still feels precarious. The summer months may give us a boost, but once they pass, the issues affecting the industry most likely will still persist.