Many many businesses DEAD

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I don’t want to see any businesses shut down or staff get fired, but even pre lockdown there were too many restaurants. Most are perennially on the edge of bankruptcy and in London at least you see most fold after 2 or 3 years. Hopefully after lockdown the restaurants that do survive benefit from less competition and lower rents. No one is going miss the mass market chains that muscle out independent restaurants by getting themselves into phenomenal levels of debt, but hopefully the business model for smaller restaurants becomes more sustainable.
 
I’ll certainly be happy to see fewer of them. I’ve sickened of the constant, inescapable stink of food everywhere you go in London. It never used to be like that, and we just don’t need so much of it. (I am possibly thinking about 20 years ago and prior to that but even so.) No wonder I think about it more or less NON-STOP!
 
The local press here is always trumpeting the food scene, heralding some great new place, but it's exactly the same - the turnover in openings and closings is ridiculously rapid.
 
I don’t think I ever ate in any of those establishments
 
Zu-Klara said:
I’ve only been to Bella Italia once and it was AWFUL. Not assisted by my German date making a huge great fuss about not splitting the bill 50/50 because I’d had the temerity to have an espresso and also his mouth reminded me of Nicholas Parsons so good riddance to BOTH
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That just completely cracked me up. :D
 
Jacques said:
Will be a tad sadder for Las Iguanas. Went for the first time in January for a friends birthday meal and rather enjoyed it for what it was.
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That might be the faintest praise I've ever encountered.
 
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Nearly all of those chains are repellent, piss taking cunts. I hope they ALL die (well, apart from the poor souls losing their jobs, obviously)

All that lot, Frankie and Bennys etc, they're the very worst type - chains that trample over all but commit the cardinal sin not that anyone seems to give a shit, of styling themselves as a theme, culture or culinary nationality while embodying absolutely none of it. No matter what you order you can guarantee it'll be light on everything especially flavour, you'll be lucky if it's lukewarm and the staff haven't the foggiest idea about the food or give a remote shit (not that you can blame them). Also your meal will arrive in a highly suspect five minutes, or an hour later. And you pay stupid amounts for the PLEASURE.

Now I think about it, what's not to love? Now gagging for cold spal bol out of a jar :disco:
 
lolly said:
The local press here is always trumpeting the food scene, heralding some great new place, but it's exactly the same - the turnover in openings and closings is ridiculously rapid.
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Whenever I look at the towns in my county which range from super affluent to downright rotten hell holes, there is NO difference whatsoever in terms of success with restaurants (or any other retail site) - they fold just as quickly everywhere.

It's a bit of a running joke in our most touristy city which has TONS of visitors and students because every few months it's like visiting a new place with the collapse/opening of some new venture or other.

We don't eat out that often, it is costly regardless, but when we do I'd nearly always prefer a local restaurant than a chain (unless it's fast food in which case you at least know what you're getting and they don't attempt to sell it any differently unlike those dreadful things mentioned above). I've found some lovely places here and it's horrible seeing them clearly scraping by.
 
The main Bella Italia in Glasgow city centre opened about five years ago, in the former home of one of the city's most famous Italian restaurants that had been operating for over fifty years. I'm not saying Bella Italia HAD THEM KILLED, but I for one have never been able to fully relax whenever I walk past it :shock:
 
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:D Oh they so did. Bella’s a murderer! She’s a MURDERER! MURDERER!

All this chat about high class Italian cuisine now has me desperate for one of those very little meat very lot of cheese jumbo lasagnes from Lidl. But it is worth certain death and an end to my very young life? :shock:
 
Let's not forget the HOSTAGE SITUATION in Bella Italia Leicester Square a few years back. CLASSY HAUNTS!
 
Parent money and jobs for self-aggrandising twats is how I would describe the vast majority of the vape shop phenomenon :side-eye:

Especially those absolutely ridiculous darkened SALOONS. Turn the lights on and there’s nothing of any interest going on whatsoever! Honestly there’s more edge in Matalan
 
Vape shops are pretty much the new barbers in terms of being fronts, I'm inclined to agree.
 
Shirley said:
I remember when it was all CHINESE MEDICINE SHOPS. What happened to THEM? :D
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Oh there's still one of those in the shopping centre near me, they have lots of signs in the window made in MS Word and printed on bits of paper. The one that always makes me smile simply says "SLIM TEA - LOOK NICE AND FEEL BETTER" :disco:
 
There are lots of wholesale clothes places near my place in London that are ALWAYS completely empty with names like "Clothes Contact", "World of Hat" and my favourite "EURO MISS."
 
Raining On Me said:
I thought this was a joke name for all these chains not a real place :D Like "Conchita's Fajitas" or "Beau Français"

I see it's a mostly :scotland: thing
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I know, it seems like a joke at first and then turns out to be terrifyingly real.

It's also an interesting marker of what's an acceptable prejudice. I mean, imagine applying a similar approach to a restaurant serving...well, almost any other type of cuisine and consider the potential furore.
 
lolly said:
Vape shops are pretty much the new barbers in terms of being fronts, I'm inclined to agree.
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Surely it's fucking COFFEE SHOPS. One seems to open a week, here. I know I have no interest in coffee whatsoever so I'm not the target market but I do not remotely understand how they all survive.

And don't get me started on how every single one is ETHICAL and calls themselves something like "Hunter Gatherer Coffee" whilst charging you £4 for a cup of HOT WATER.
 
Coffee shops have very much gone the same way as restaurants here - always a new one opening, always an old one closing. It’s clearly a saturated market, and I don’t understand how people think there is money still in it.

Even Starbucks only have one in central Bristol now. Going back a couple of years they had six.
 
Shearings were coach holidays weren't they? You'd see their charming blue old-people-carriers around the streets.

Hoseasons are more SCABBY FAMILIES surely so as soon as they're allowed to re-open they'll be full of people who won't send their kids back to school cos it's not safe.
 
Kate said:
Shearings were coach holidays weren't they? You'd see their charming blue old-people-carriers around the streets.
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And therefore especially vulnerable because their core audience was the over 50's.

If Hoseasons can make it summer, they'll be fine, especially with Priti Patel's "temporary" quarantine measures which are undoubtedly designed to make people holiday in the UK.
 
Kate said:
Hoseasons are more SCABBY FAMILIES
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Well honestly, how unkind. I hope you’re not suggesting that all Hoseasons families have children who’ve gone cross-eyed after pigging out on a maggoty Bentos :side-eye:
 
I have never heard of Shearings. I had to google when I saw the BREAKING NEWS on BBC yesterday.
 
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