Friday Five: the week's top news
- Chefs Paul Ainsworth and Tommy Banks have launched an employee exchange programme, enabling teams to swap companies for a week and experience the workings of another business. The initiative, which launched earlier this month, is targeted at employees in front of house and back of house roles, as well as office and operational staff within Ainsworth's Cornwall-based businesses, which includes the Michelin-starred Paul Ainsworth at Number 6 in Padstow and The Mariners gastropub in nearby Rock, and Banks's Yorkshire empire, which encompasses Michelinstarred restaurants The Black Swan at Oldstead and Roots in York. Three successful exchanges have taken place already, and a further seven are scheduled for 2022.
- UKHospitality has warned that this week's rail strikes could deliver a 'fatal financial blow' to businesses already struggling to survive. Chief executive Kate Nicholls said the strikes, which have seen much of the national rail network ground to a halt this week, will cost the sector £540m across, based on a 20% drop in sales where a typical June week sees takings of £2.75bn.
- Honest Burgers is to convert its all-vegan V Honest site close to London's Leicester Square back to its core concept in July, just six months after launching the spin-off brand. In an email to customers, the group said it was turning the Garrick Street restaurant back to a classic Honest Burgers restaurant next month in order to offer 'a broader range of Honest classics as well as your vegetarian and vegan favourites.
- Duck Duck Goose founder Oli Brown and his partner Ruth Leigh are to launch an outdoor restaurant with rooms near Deal, Kent, next month. Housed within a 17th century Grade II-listed farmhouse, Updown will have seven rooms in total including two cottages, all of which have been carefully restored by the couple over the past few years. Updown's main farmhouse will hold four bedrooms all overlooking the site's extensive grounds, with the additional rooms housed within the farm’s former outbuildings. Alongside this there will be the outdoor restaurant, which will be led by Brown and sheltered under a pergola shaded by hanging vines and wisteria. The restaurant will overlook Updown's central lawn and farmhouse, and have its own outdoor kitchen with a bakers oven built into the stable wall.
- Bristol’s vibrant shipping container development Cargo is to be removed and replaced with a 12-storey building. The area at Wapping Wharf, which includes numerous restaurants as well as shops and workspaces, will be dismantled to make way for a new, permanent building, according to developer and owner Umberslade. Restaurants at the quayside currently at the Cargo development include Dog Town, Gambas, Seven Lucky Gods, Woky Ko, Squeezed, and Josh Eggleton's Root (pictured above) and Salt & Malt. It is understood that existing businesses at Cargo will be invited to have a permanent home in the building, which will feature a two-storey permanent covered market called Cargo Market Hall. Here the ground floor will be home to small retail and food shops and the first floor given over to larger restaurants.
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