UK Restaurants Say Social Distancing Could Bankrupt Them

UK Restaurants May Not Survive Social Distancing

If restaurants and bars in the U.K. are required to apply social distancing when they reopen, many won’t survive, according to a new study of restaurant owners.

A survey of 260 pubs and eateries by SquareMeal, London’s independent guide to eating establishments, was presented to a parliamentary advisory committee on Friday (May 1), the Financial Times reported.

Operators including Paul, the French chain of bakery-cafés; JKS Restaurants of London; and Accor, a global hospitality company, told researchers that the measures intended to stop COVID-19 could threaten their businesses.

Three-quarters of owners said their margins are too thin to support fewer customers, the survey said. Nearly half of the respondents expect to lay off staff in the next month, and more than 25 percent of respondents said it would be impossible to implement social distancing measures.

“Keeping people one meter (1.3 feet) apart at entrances and exits and toilet areas is impossible,” Tobias Jackson, operations director of Adventure Bar, a London cafe chain told the news service. “We would reduce capacity by around 60 to 70 percent. This would result in making 50 to 60 percent of my staff unemployed.”

One solution that could work, Jackson said, is to install plastic screens between tables. “It would look terrible and feel horrible … but it might be something that from a financial perspective is better than mothballing,” he added. 

Jo Eames, director of Peach Pubs, which operates 20 pubs in the south of England, said margins are so tight and costs so high in the hospitality industry that no business can survive with much less than 90 percent full turnover. “Trying to operate at 50 percent or less will send almost every business into a tailspin of increasing losses,” Eames told FT.

A number of other operators said constant sanitation — cleaning of surfaces and tableware, and staff handwashing — would diminish the atmosphere and increase costs to businesses that already run on thin margins.

“The challenge will be ongoing compliance with health and safety guidelines, and balance between cost management and product execution,” said Jyotin Sethi, owner of JKS. “In our larger restaurants, it is easier to introduce the social distancing measures, but they have a larger cost. [In] smaller restaurants [it is] much harder to introduce social distancing, but they are cheaper to run.”

On March 20, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered U.K. bars, restaurants, gyms and cinemas to close as the country locks down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Business Insider reported. “We need to push down further on this curve,” Johnson said at a press conference. “Following agreement between all four nations of the United Kingdom … we are collectively telling cafes, bars, pubs and restaurants to close tonight as soon as they reasonably can and not to open tomorrow.”