00:00Sort of Wetherspoons have been the real success story in hospitality. I mean, obviously there are
00:05pubs, but of course lots of people go to Wetherspoons for sort of the cheap beer and the
00:08cheap food. If Wetherspoons are sort of feeling the pinch, which is clearly sort of part of the
00:13problem, and indeed they're having to sort of look at the costs, then it doesn't bode well for the
00:19rest of the sector. How big a role is employment costs, things like national insurance, the living
00:24wage going up? How much of a part do these play in the problems that the pubs are seeing at the
00:29moment? Well, I mean, the thing about sort of a pub is that sort of that there are firstly the fixed
00:35costs, because of course you have the premises and you either sort of own them, which of course is
00:40sort of an opportunity cost, you know, because we could use that money elsewhere, invest it in the
00:44stock exchange or sort of put it in the bank and get a guaranteed rate of return, such as it may be.
00:50So there's that. But of course, the sort of the thing that's a really hit sort of all sort of
00:55businesses like ourselves is energy costs. They've gone up tremendously because of course,
00:59Ukraine. And then all the other sort of subsidiary costs, you have to sort of the repair and
01:05maintain these places and so on and so forth. But of course, the other sort of big element is
01:09staff cost. You know, they have to pass it on to the customer, which makes that sort of
01:12pint of beer or the sort of the cup of coffee or the sort of the meal that you buy all the more
01:17expensive. There is a fact, I also sort of add, because we all know that we go to the supermarket and
01:23the sort of the bottle of beer that you buy, that might be three, four, five quid in the sort of the pub,
01:28you can buy sort of a box of these things, sort of, you know, they work out as sort of a fraction
01:34of the price. So I think people sort of, their patterns of behaviour are changing, driven by the
01:40sort of the fact that, you know, and of course, good weather is a sort of good opportunity to have
01:43beers in the garden.
01:45Are we seeing a shift in consumer behaviour in general? Like younger generations seem to be going
01:49out drinking less?
01:50There is no sort of doubt that nightclubs are sort of closing a sort of great rate of knots,
01:57if you sort of forgive the expression, because, yeah, they're finding a deal where people don't
02:02go to sort of venues in the same way that they once did. So, you know, the idea of sort of opening
02:06a pub and sort of, you know, people will flock there, it doesn't always happen. And I've been
02:10in some places and you do look around and when you're seeing more sort of bar staff than customers,
02:16there is a sort of problem. So, yeah, I think there is a sort of definite sort of shift.
02:21The difficulty is also the long-term sort of consequences that if pubs disappear, they
02:28will probably not return.
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