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SABAH MEDDINGS

The worst is yet to come for ailing restaurants

The Sunday Times

Anyone seeing photographs of alfresco dining returning to London’s Soho could be lulled into a false sense of security. Do the crowds enjoying cocktails and tapas at outdoor tables signal that Britain’s restaurants are through the worst of the economic chaos?

Sadly, I fear not.

Despite government measures to stem job losses, hundreds of thousands have gone in hospitality since the start of the pandemic, with many more to come. This is ground zero of the employment crisis.

For some older brands — such as Café Rouge, Carluccio’s and Frankie & Benny’s — Covid-19 simply accelerated the inevitable. They had become tired after years of underinvestment by private equity firms drunk on debt-fuelled expansion. They would have struggled to last for much longer even in