Moaning millennials? Generation Y just want a job they can enjoy February 17, 2016 Moaning millennials? Old geezers down the pub used to tell the younger generation: “You’ve never had it so good”. Nowadays I’d expect most millennials would spit their pint out laughing, assuming they can afford to pay £5 for a pint. So a report today, which suggested generation Y (those born after 1980) are the "whiniest workers", [...]
The Woodford review: Fine dining hits TOWIE country April 19, 2016 Food | ★★★★☆ Value | ★★★☆☆ Atmosphere | ★★★★★ 159 High Rd, London E18 2PA Tel: 020 8504 5952 I’m going to open a restaurant. It’s going to be just outside the North Circular – not technically in Essex, but close enough that people from central London will sneer – in a former nightclub that was shut down [...]
All Bar One and Harvester owner Mitchells & Butlers reinstates dividends despite “modest sales” November 24, 2015 FTSE 250-listed pub group Mitchells & Butlers is resuming dividend payments after a seven year break. The figures Revenue at the group, which owns All Bar One, Browns and Harvester brands, was up 6.6 per cent in the full year ending 26 September, to £2.1bn, and pre-tax profits were just up on last year's £123m, at £126m. However, like-for-likes softened over the [...]
JD Wetherspoon hits out at government’s Living Wage September 11, 2015 Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has become the most recent in a series of companies to hit out at the government’s Living Wage. In the company’s preliminary yearly results, the pub chain said the government is putting pubs under financial strain. Read more: National living wage – All businesses will end up paying it – but [...]
Is Twitter dead? Why I was right about it failing January 31, 2016 Almost exactly a year ago, I declared that Twitter would be dead in three years. As the head of a digital agency, I could see both how Twitter was trying to monetise itself, and how people were trying to monetise Twitter as a service for their clients. I didn’t see lasting value in either. In the last year, [...]
City Living: Kenmont Gardens in Kensal Rise is the most impressive church conversion you’ve ever seen February 25, 2016 A lot can change in ten years. Chamberlayne Road, the jugular vein of Kensal Rise that pumps all life between Ladbroke Grove and Willesden Green, was once the drive-by-shooting capital of London. Now, it’s packed with pubs, music venues, boutiques and restaurants and the surrounding streets are populated by a host of celebrity admirers and [...]
Stocks hope to rebound after last week’s dip – London Report November 15, 2015 MARKETS across Europe will be looking to recover lost ground this week, following UK and European stocks recording their worst performance since late August last week, due to falling mining shares chipping away at blue chip FTSE 100. Tomorrow EasyJet will report its full year results, coming off the back of a share price surge [...]
Britons spend less on drinking out in November after Rugby World Cup hangover December 23, 2015 Consumer spending on going out and entertainment fell by eight per cent in November as Britons tightened their belts ahead of Christmas. Households spent £17 less on leisure activities last month compared with October, dragging year-on-year spending down by two per cent overall, according to pub group Greene King’s latest Leisure Spend Tracker. Drinking out [...]
Wetherspoons profits drop: Pub chain looks for new weapons in push against supermarket price war March 13, 2015 JD Wetherspoon could be a victim of the supermarket price war. To fight the discounters, the pub chain offers competitive prices for breakfasts and Lavazza coffees – of which it has already sells 50m cups a year- between certain hours. It also sells 24m breakfasts a year and hopes to triple the sales of both [...]
Restaurants and bars get their appetite back following Rugby World Cup 2015 boost October 26, 2015 The Rugby World Cup and greater consumer spending power thanks to falling food and petrol prices provided a much needed boost to UK bars and restaurants during the third quarter of the year. According to Begbies Traynor’s latest Red Flag update, which monitors the health of UK companies, the number of restaurants and bars experiencing “significant” [...]