If you are a young entrepreneur thinking of going into the pub trade it is probably best to forget it.
For a start, opportunities to find an operating pub are diminishing with every passing month.
50 pubs shut a month
Government statistics analysed by commercial real estate intelligence firm Altus Group, show that 50 UK pubs shut down every month.
For decades everything from drink-driving laws to cheap supermarket booze has eaten away at the pub trade.
Harder blows
COVID, energy costs and increasing wages for staff dealt harder blows in the last couple of years.
“People also don’t have the disposable income that they once had to spend in pubs,” Martin Caffrey, the operations director of the Federation of Licenced Victuallers Association, told the Matt Haycox Daily.
The FLVA represents pub landlords across the UK.
“It is not very attractive to young entrepreneurs these days.”
Caffrey says to add to the woes of the pub trade is a dearth of new blood behind the bar.
“It is not very attractive to young entrepreneurs these days. It is very costly to run a pub,” says Caffrey.
To make matters worse, many of the big breweries – that own chains of pubs across the country – insist on five-year leases for landlords.
The lease can be lost
“This means that no matter how well you have done, the lease can be taken from you and given to someone else. This is another reason why young people are not that interested these days,” says Caffrey.
Research by accountancy firm Price Bailey, published in June, revealed that 620 pubs in the UK entered insolvency over the previous 12 months – a 68% increase on the previous year’s figures.
