Friday five: the week's top hospitality stories
- Greene King has bought barbecue brand Hickory’s with an ambition to grow it into a national dining chain. The pub company describes Hickory’s as 'highly complementary' to its current portfolio of brands and geographical reach. As part of this transaction, it plans to leverage its scale and accelerate the national roll out of the Hickory’s brand beyond its North West heartland.
- Jamie Oliver is launching a pasta concept in London in a partnership with delivery-first kitchen group Taster. Launching from a pop-up kitchen in Soho's Archer Street, Soho, Pasta Dreams will be open for click and collect as well as for delivery. The menu, overseen by Oliver, has been specifically crafted with delivery in mind, and featuresa selection of handmade fresh pasta dishes, filled shapes and bakes.
- Growing numbers of over 50s are taking on jobs in the Hospitality sector, according to new research. The latest Caterer.com Hospitality Hiring Insider, which analyses job ad data and the views of 600 hospitality professionals, has found that more than 130,000 over 50s are working in the sector specifically to ‘boost their retirement income’, and hospitality employers have seen a surge in applications from this demographic. In total there are estimated to be 554,400 over 50s working in hospitality, equating to roughly 25% of the sector's total workforce.
- The team behind acclaimed Manchester wine bar Flawd will open a permanent site for their Higher Ground restaurant concept in the city’s Chinatown enclave early next year. Richard Cossins, Daniel Craig Martin and chef Joseph Otway launched Higher Ground as a four-month pop-up restaurant concept in early 2020 but the project was halted by the pandemic after just four weeks.
- Restaurant spend fell by 12.2% in September, according to the latest figures from Barclaycard, with further pain expected as consumers cut back on discretionary purchases amid rising living costs. The latest year-on-year fall in restaurant spend follows a drop of 11.4% in August. Bars, pubs and clubs , meanwhile, slipped into the red for the first time since March 2021, with a decline of 0.4%. Overall, consumer card spending grew 1.8% in September – the smallest uplift since February 2021.
