Friday five: the week's top hospitality stories
- Revolution Bar Group has acquired The Peach Pub Company in a deal worth £16.5m. Revolution, which currently operates 69 bars under its Revolution, Revolucion de Cuba brands, Founders & Co and Playhouse brands, has acquired the 21-strong premium pub company with a view to diversifying its growth strategy.
- Hospitality and leisure workers are missing out on around £200m a year, according to Labour. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, is setting out plans this week to ensure employers allocate all tips, gratuities and service charge payments to workers in full, without any deductions apart from statutory taxes, by the end of the next month.
- Britain’s licensed sector saw a net decline of one closure every hour in the third quarter of 2022, amounting to 2,200 closures. The latest Hospitality Market Monitor from CGA and AlixPartners shows there were just under 104,000 licensed premises at the end of September 2022 — a net drop of 2,230 since June, which represents an average of just over 24 closures a day, or more than 150 per week. This latest decline leaves the licensed market with 11,426 (or -9.9%) fewer sites than March 2020.
- Phil Howard has changed the name of his soon-to-open pasta restaurant following a legal challenge. The chef is due to open pasta restaurant OTTO in London's Piccadilly next month, but says it will now be renamed NOTTO. The brand initially debuted as an online delivery service in May 2021 under the OTTO name bringing pasta dishes to central London.
- Trade bodies have warned the Government's decision to scrap the planned freeze on alcohol duty has 'critically compromised' thousands of businesses and workers across the hospitality sector. Newly-appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said the freeze would be reversed as a part of a complete rowing back of the Government's so-called 'Growth Plan'. According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), the freeze would have delivered a £300m saving to businesses.
