Restaurants feel mid-market pinch
- added July 13, 2008
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- thekingbeyond
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In a slowdown, economists say to expect the squeeze in the market's middle: for Britain's recently fast-growing restaurants, it's starting with lunch.
Chef Pascal Aussignac, who has been serving Londoners at the chic Club Gascon for almost a decade, says rising inflation, housing and food prices are pinching his customers' midday purses.
"People are eating more at their desk, they've cut down their budget," he said. "Only senior people are lunching at a restaurant ... We feel the credit crunch at lunchtime."
Chefs in the U.K.'s 24 billion pound industry, such as Michel Roux, owner of London's Le Gavroche restaurant, have seen the price of a fillet of beef rise to 26 pounds, from 19 in January, Roux told Reuters.
"I am taking a bitter pill," Roux said on the sidelines of a food festival, Taste London, where elegantly dressed women in wide-brimmed hats sipped champagne and sampled oysters.
But analysts say his Mayfair restaurant -- which charges an average of 80 pounds per head -- and other up-market sites where customers don't need to look at their pay cheques ahead of a decision to dine are not on the front line.
It is the mid-market tier, charging between 20 and 30 pounds per head and mainly set in provincial Britain where the prospect of tougher times and rising prices are prompting ordinary people to eat more at home.
"It's a sector that's going to have a really tough time," said Peter Baldwin, a partner at law firm Jones Day, which specialises in debt restructurings and insolvencies. "The first bit of expenses that people cut are the personal expenses, like restaurants."
Chef Pascal Aussignac, who has been serving Londoners at the chic Club Gascon for almost a decade, says rising inflation, housing and food prices are pinching his customers' midday purses.
"People are eating more at their desk, they've cut down their budget," he said. "Only senior people are lunching at a restaurant ... We feel the credit crunch at lunchtime."
Chefs in the U.K.'s 24 billion pound industry, such as Michel Roux, owner of London's Le Gavroche restaurant, have seen the price of a fillet of beef rise to 26 pounds, from 19 in January, Roux told Reuters.
"I am taking a bitter pill," Roux said on the sidelines of a food festival, Taste London, where elegantly dressed women in wide-brimmed hats sipped champagne and sampled oysters.
But analysts say his Mayfair restaurant -- which charges an average of 80 pounds per head -- and other up-market sites where customers don't need to look at their pay cheques ahead of a decision to dine are not on the front line.
It is the mid-market tier, charging between 20 and 30 pounds per head and mainly set in provincial Britain where the prospect of tougher times and rising prices are prompting ordinary people to eat more at home.
"It's a sector that's going to have a really tough time," said Peter Baldwin, a partner at law firm Jones Day, which specialises in debt restructurings and insolvencies. "The first bit of expenses that people cut are the personal expenses, like restaurants."
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- thekingbeyond
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