Hospitality divided over second England lockdown

Its weekly poll of 242  board level operators of pubs, restaurants and food to go businesses found that 43% of hospitality operators do not support the Government’s second lockdown of England while 41% of respondents said they did support it. A further 16% were undecided.

Operators also expressed their concerns for the lockdown extending beyond 2 December, the earliest it will be lifted, according to the Government, with just over a third of businesses (34%) rating their chance of survival as a business as poor if the lockdown were extended. Just 22% of the hospitality operators asked rated their chance of survival as good even if the lockdown stretched into December.
 
Despite their fears, operators believe they are better placed to weather the current lockdown having had experience of it firs time round, with 69% of respondents saying they are in some way better prepared for the coming four weeks.

However, a number of businesses have expressed anger and concern over the Government’s decision to not allow hospitality venues to serve alcohol for takeaway unless it has been ordered in advance by phone, or online.

“It will be a real struggle without alcohol off sales and even worse if we don’t get support if we do off sales. Last time we did just 4fourhours a week as an off licence but it made a big difference,” says one publican.

Another says: “The impact of not being able to sell take away/off sales alcohol will be huge,” with a further saying: “Not allowing take away alcohol with there takeaway meals is a poor decision.. I will have to lay off more staff as I can’t sustain running my business that I’ve run for 29 years just on takeaways.”

Despite the announcement of the second national lockdown the percentage of hospitality operators asked who are confident in the future of their business rose from 9% to 14% week on week.

The weekly poll is conducted by Lumina Intelligence for BigHospitality, Restaurant, MCA, and The MA.