IN ASSOCIATION WITH
TLT
TLT is a law firm with a specialism advising the leisure sector, with offices in London, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow. They assist some of the leading restaurants, bars, clubs, brewers, pub companies, hotels, caterers and visitor attractions to stay ahead in this highly competitive industry. Clients include Barburrito, Boston Tea Party, Byron, Las Iguanas, Living Ventures and Pizza Pilgrims.
What will be the impact of a National Living Wage? JY: It will take a while to bottom out. We won’t know the impact until quarter one of 2017. We’ve got bigger things to worry about at the moment. But it will probably change our view of labour. We will see it as more of a commodity and we will have to get cute and clever and make use of technolo- gies – both in the room and back of house – without affecting the consumer. We need to get smarter before we add 20p to everything on the menu.
BS: It is a major challenge, but I hope we will attract more productive staff.
JM: Bear in mind that suppliers will have to put up costs too.
Will you welcome contactless payment methods? JY: Four or five players are coming and they won’t all survive. Apple Pay probably will. The problem for the consumer is which app to use in which restaurant, so people will probably resort to credit cards again.
MD: I personally hate the end of the evening when you can’t pay your bill.
www.thecaterer.com
BS: Apple Pay doesn’t solve that. Isn’t the whole point of going out to eat and drink and get away from technology?
JY: We will get used to it. In three years’ time we will be where we now are with social media. In fact, I think prepay will come in. In five years we will be asking the consumer what they want. They will say “I have got £50 to spend tonight, so who wants my business?”
BS: Well, at Alinea in Chicago we were asked to pay in advance instead of a deposit.
JY: Yes, for some restaurants if tables don’t show it costs them a big percentage.
TK: We suffer from no-shows. You need to be in a position to mend it, but you can’t give a guest too many conditions.
MD: We are stopping online bookings at weekends. We trialled it at one of our sites and made £2,500 a week more. We found that if people have to ring to make a booking, we can develop more of a relationship with them and they are more likely to turn up.
PizzaExpress is introducing a delivery
service. Other companies use an intermediary delivery service that can charge up to 30%. Which is best? TK: The headache of managing drivers means companies such as Deliveroo are making a killing out of the delivery business. As restau- rateurs, we don’t know how to manage drivers, insurance and so on.
JY: As it grows I would be interested to see what happens to the quality of food. It affects your brand if the food is not delivered in good con- dition. You need to research your packaging.
TK: And packaging can be expensive. Chi- nese, Indian, pizza cuisines are deliverable, but how can you deliver steak au poivre in a good state? If you want the packaging to do justice to your food, that could be £5 out of a bill of £30, plus paying the delivery service – so is it worth doing?
BS: We tried offering delivered food, but it didn’t work as there was no critical mass. But delivery companies such as Deliveroo are here to stay – it has had funding of $100m [since its 2013 start-up]. If you can get criti- cal mass then it could become a platform for operators that are not on a high street, but in a warehouse.
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