Restaurant and pub sales pick up but outlook soured by inflation

Casual dining chains enjoyed a sales uptick in recent weeks, according to a survey of major pubs and restaurant groups that also confirmed a wider improvement across the sector.

Managed pubs, bars and restaurants saw like-for-likes sales pick up to 1.8% in September compared to the same month last year, according to the Coffer Peach business tracker, up from 0.6% in August and 0.3% in July.

Total sales also accelerated to 5.0% thanks to new openings, up from 4.2% and 4% in the previous two months.

Branded restaurants performed best, with 2.2% LFL growth in the month, after the slump in casual dining in the surveys from the later summer months.

The data, which is tallied from sales figures from 34 larger chains owned by companies including Mitchells & Butlers, Whitbread, Pizza Hut, Restaurant Group, Greene King and Marston’s, showed pub groups grew LFL sales 1.6% even against numbers the previous year boosted by the Rugby World Cup.

“The good weather will have helped trade this September, but the underlying trend for the market as a whole has been upwards right across the summer, so operators can take some heart from the fact that the public doesn’t appear to have cut back on going out despite the continuing longer-term economic uncertainty around Brexit,” said Peter Martin of CGA Peach, which carries out the survey. .

He was further encouraged that the uplift was not just driven by London and tourism in the wake of the falling pound, with the figures showing a bigger increase outside the M25, where collective LFL growth was up 2.2% against a 0.9% rise in the capital.

Mark Sheehan, managing director of Coffer Corporate Leisure, further noted: "Hospitality is often a bellwether of confidence and these figures show the continued resilience of UK consumers."

However, he warned Tuesday's ONS report on rising inflation "could well mean that we start to see a dip in consumer confidence levels and reduced spend on eating-out as cost increases start to get passed on to customers".