Inside Track by Peter Martin
What’s new out there? It’s one of the two questions I’m most often asked about the UK eating and drinking-out market.
Simply in terms of new concepts and launches, the answer would be ‘not a lot’.
What new ideas that have hit the streets in recent months have tended to be food-led and in the fast casual, take-away end of the market, with the arrival of concepts such as Fresh Italy and Tiffinbites.
This is an area that ex-PizzaExpress boss David Page, for one, believes there are potential rich pickings. His new company Clapham House is busy looking for acquisitions of fledging concepts to develop. The most recent addition to the portfolio is the Bombay Bicycle Company, an Asian-food delivery business.
At the more serious end of the market, Alan Yau, the creator of Wagamama, Hakkasan and Busaba, has just opened his latest offering in London, Yauatcha, which is a dim-sum concept, also reflecting the trend towards informality in eating-out.
But this is not to say that the rest of sector is bereft of innovation. It is just that rather than look for new brand launches, the majority of operators are now concentrating firmly on making what they already have work better – and that is no bad thing.
Hard Rock and Ha! Ha! Bar & Canteen are both in the process of developing new menus and looks, for example.
Many of the most familiar concepts on the high street are still mere teenagers in brand evolutionary terms and have yet to reach their potential. Names such as Wagamama, Yo! Sushi, La Tasca, Living Room, Carluccio’s and Loch Fyne may now be established and making money, but there biggest challenges probably lay ahead – and their owners recognise that.
International roll-outs are already part of the plan for Wagamama and La Tasca, and at least a couple more are now contemplating testing their businesses in the tough US market.
It is a testament to the seriousness with which UK operators are now taken that for the first time one of America’s leading restaurant conferences, the Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators convention in Los Angeles in October, will have a dedicated session on UK concepts.
The pub and bar arena may not appear as sexy as the food-led end of the market, and price-obsessed high street looks in need of some new ideas fast, but some of the brands that appear to be struggling are still essentially profitable businesses. They should not be given up on.
High street pub and bar concepts often seem to suffer more by being owned by under-pressure, publicly quoted companies. City sentiment is not good currently.
Many might prosper better and be allowed to refocus away from the glare of the public markets?
Which brings us to the other most often asked question – "who’s buying what?". Knowing what’s new and knowing what’s working can always lead to knowing where there’s a deal. The appetite for doing deals has certainly not dried up.
