Over 150 London pubs, bars and restaurants closed forever in 2020.
The number of venues has dropped from 3,460 to 3,303 as the pandemic has had a major impact on the sector. It’s a 4.5% drop.
The closures in over 2020 were roughly triple the closures in 2019. In addition to London, Birmingham and Leeds saw numerous closures in the sector with a decline of 8.5% and 5.6% respectively.
Across the UK, 10,000 pubs and restaurants closed in 2020.
Mark Lynch, a partner at Oghma Partners’ Corporate Finance House, commented on the number of pubs and restaurant closures in 2020. It will be closed throughout 2021 and directly and indirectly affect a huge section of the UK population. Lockdown restrictions include essentially frozen foods and food service providers who cannot serve their clients as usual. Pubs, restaurants, foodservice manufacturers, and, to a lesser extent, food to demonstrate their capabilities have disappeared from the market. However, direct sales are growing actively to consumers and supermarket companies. In fact, we have already seen a major change in consumer behavior that could increase as these companies grow in 2020 and gain more market share.
“Unsurprisingly, since we launched this review in 2009, both overall trading volume and value for 2020 have been recorded. The uncertainty of all markets surrounding Covid-19 and Brexit Despite this, appetite from overseas and financial investors was relatively positive throughout 2020. It accounted for 27.1% and 20.3% of total trading volume, respectively. In 2021, the distressed trading was active. We expect it to be a continuous feature, but our expectations will not be seen as M&A activity increases year by year until the second quarter of 2021,” he added.
