West End has 109 per cent sales boost but retail leaders call for ‘urgent’ business reform October 10, 2022 West End retailers are calling for fresh support and radical reform to help continue their pandemic recovery. The organisation representing 600 outlets and hospitality firms in Bond St, Oxford St, Regent St and Mayfair announced the district is returning to pre-coronavirus levels, but that it still needs help to stop it faltering. The New West [...]
The Square Mile and Me: Steffan Williams on the joy of comms, the City’s data revolution and J Sheekey’s charms April 6, 2023 Each week we ask the City’s great and good to dig deep into the memory bank and tell us their favourite tales from the Square Mile. This week it’s Steffan Williams, the well-connected comms supremo and co-founder of Williams Nicolson What was your first job? Graduate Trainee at Charterhouse Bank. The key question at interview [...]
Wagamama owner hikes full-year estimates after sales surge November 16, 2021 Wagamama’s owner has upgraded its estimates for the financial year, forecasting adjusted EBITDA of up to £79m. In a trading update published on Tuesday morning, The Restaurant Group said its venues had traded well with like-for-like sales outperforming the market. There had been strong sales across the Wagamama brand, as well as its pubs and [...]
How to help save the rainforest in Peru while you travel July 22, 2024 The air is thick under the humid rainforest canopy in Peru’s Amazonian basin. Insects hum and the squawks of circling macaws echo through the trees. I’m silently crouching on the forest floor when the rainforest ambience is briefly interrupted by gasps as a large tarantula leaps out of a hole and darts toward me. It’s [...]
‘I started this as a hobby’: Cricket star Stuart Broad reflects on his naive start to the world of hospitality July 12, 2023 England cricketer turned pub landlord Stuart Broad has admitted he had a “naive” understanding about what it took to run a hospitality business, as he reopens his pub amid a period of soaring bills and red hot inflation. The 37-year old sports star has recently relaunched his pub and restaurant The Tap and Run in [...]
Now pubs and bars call for visa help as staff shortage bites September 28, 2021 Restaurant and pub bosses have pleaded for ‘easy visas’ to help fill vacancies as they desperately try to recruit enough staff to keep the doors open. Patrick Dardis, CEO of London-based pub group Young’s told City A.M. yesterday that the UK needed to open up the job market to the EU to increase the labour [...]
Congratulations France, but Paris 2024 legacy must now be human August 8, 2024 This is a Paris you’ve never known and never will again. Empty side streets speak of Parisians good to their threats to vacate for the Olympics. Hotel receptionists attest to sluggish bookings. Restaurants are shuttered. And yet the crowds are here, French and foreigners alike. They exude a relaxed urgency, a collegiate passion. The sport [...]
Heart and Seoul in South Korea, as the nation reopens for tourism April 25, 2022 The baby octopus floats in its tank, blissfully ignorant, until, all too soon, its time comes. The tiny, wrinkled old woman, who, I later learn, has been manning this particular food stall in Seoul’s colourful, noisy, aromatic Gwangjang market for over thirty-two years, yanks it out unceremoniously and whacks it down onto the steel surface. [...]
Two Ukrainian Plays, Finborough Theatre, review: Haunting tales from Ukraine August 20, 2022 Some proceeds from Two Ukrainian Plays are donated toThe Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, a Ukrainian charity that provides urgently needed psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by the war in Ukraine. You can donate using this link above. The capital’s artistic organisations have been collaborating, producing and devising Ukrainian-themed work ever since Russia made [...]
Can this £35k Swiss wellness centre cure my London work stress? January 22, 2024 Can this Swiss wellness centre cure Priya Joshi of the stresses of London? She checked in to find out