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Unless the Government and Mayor get a grip on what’s happening in London , we are in danger of destroying vast sections of the infrastructure that makes the city so special and individual.
I think I have been through most of the challenges that a restaurateur could have experienced since I made my start in the Seventies: riots, recessions, depressions, wars, IRA bombings, property market collapses, stock market crashes, Aids, Swine flu, bird flu, foot-and-mouth, Sars — the list goes on — but nothing has approached the devastation that has “plagued” us since March. To find ourselves so quickly impotent and yet responsible for, in my case, the best part of 1,000 staff and their families, with no income to support them, is an experience that will live with me forever.
Unless fortunate enough to enjoy supportive investors, there is hardly a restaurant that isn’t technically trading insolvently. The end of furlough will be the demise of many.
We got through lockdown, just, thanks to the Chancellor’s job retention scheme and Eat Out to Help Out, and some generous customers supporting staff, but I am afraid the sector will need so much more help if it is to survive in a recognisable, or desirable, state.
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The success of London’s restaurant business over the past 20 years has nurtured a whole new generation of incredibly talented chefs and restaurateurs who are likely to be thwarted in their development because of the disaster that awaits the independent restaurant sector. They need help, otherwise we will be left with the same kind of homogenisation of restaurants that ruined retail on our high streets...
Offices
I don’t understand why the UK has the lowest office occupancy in all Europe : 34 per cent against France’s 87 per cent, and the truth is that in central London it is more like 15 per cent. People are clearly affected by institutional fear. However, I have been acutely aware of how excited many have been to be back in a restaurant environment — what I call the “conviviality of community”. I think many companies will soon realise that although their staff don’t necessarily wish to return five days a week, true creativity and productivity will not be achieved from domestic dining tables.
Landlords
There is a need for fundamental change in our lease structures, whether for hospitality or retail, because the frenzy of site acquisitions over the years by chains has meant that rents have become insupportable and over-inflated. At the same time, the leases have become shorter and with less security than ever. Ten-year leases don’t encourage investment and hence you are seeing the prevalence of concrete floors, painted walls, exposed ceilings and cheap, uncomfortable furniture, despite highly achieved cooking and service. It’s all about financial expediency but it is now time for the landlords to encourage the businesses by offering turnover rents rather than just taking the highest bid. This creates a partnership. During Covid, some landlords have behaved with great credit and it is no surprise that they are led by family estates such as Cadogan, the Crown Estate, Howard de Walden and Grosvenor — who really care about London. Some of the others have behaved deplorably, with neither sympathy nor compassion. I have one in particular whose bullying and avarice is shocking. The Government has issued guidelines but they are as effective as the Met Office asking Storm Francis “to be careful”. We need real constructive help.
Congestion Charge
If you were to put together a committee to find ways of discouraging people from returning to central London they would come up with ideas such as 1) telling people it is dangerous to even be on public transport 2) saying you should only go to your office by foot or bicycle and 3) imposing higher “fines” for using a car and extending those tolls up until 10pm, seven days a week. I have never encountered a measure that has induced more outrage and ire than the last one. The real causes of congestion are the measures that have been implemented in the past few months such as over-zealous lane reductions, exemplified by the traffic jams in Euston Road, Park Lane, Piccadilly and Regent Street. We are blighted with what looks like permanent road works in order to create extra walking areas that have been steadfastly unutilised. The congestion charge changes must be reverted. So what it comes down to is...
Leadership
I mentioned “guidelines” earlier — guidelines are useless because they are inevitably ignored by the very people they should be controlling. I believe that all humanity thrives on knowing the rules — certainly the British seem to. Guidelines are purely a reminder to the people who don’t need them as to how they should behave anyway.
We need to be confident in what we are doing and that means leadership that we are prepared to risk following, rather than just ignoring. We saw this through Brexit when we were all left in limbo and the moaning started. There is a great difference between “moaning” and “complaining” and I am afraid the British have a predilection for the former. It is negative, destructive and leaves people depressed. When we know where we stand we engage all our traditional powers of determination and positivity, but at present the dearth of firm guidelines is rendering us catatonic and happy to stay at home, whilst a disaster unfolds. We need to complain more!
We are desperately in need of constructive cohesion from government and City Hall if we are to survive. Someone needs to unite us.
Jeremy King is co-founder of the Corbin & King group, which includes The Wolseley and Brasserie Zédel