Those who actively follow restaurants on social media may have seen a trend developing in recent weeks. Posts – often offering apologies, usually written with a tone of resigned frustration – outlining a reduction in opening hours. Padella, the famed pasta restaurant with outposts in Shoreditch and Borough Market, announced it would be closed for two lunch services. Canalside Italian restaurant Ombra shared a reduction in opening hours for the foreseeable future. Both cited staff shortages as the reason.
Elsewhere, if people weren’t closing, they were certainly – and regularly – advertising their job vacancies. “We used to get 50 to 60 applications for a job vacancy,” says Jose Etura of Sabor Restaurant on Heddon Street. “Now we’re lucky if we get four or five.”
Analysis by UK Hospitality found 80 per cent of businesses reported vacancies for front-of-house roles, 85 per cent for chef roles, 47 per cent for housekeeping and 43 per cent for assistant or general managers.
“The lockdowns messed up restaurants quite badly,” Mitshel Ibrahim, the owner of Hackney-based Ombra, tells me. “We were the first to close and the last to reopen, so we lost the opportunity to provide a stable place of work for many.” Ombra is no longer opening on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and is cutting down its lunch services.
All of this begs the question – why? “It’s been a combination of two factors that created a perfect storm for us. The first one was Covid – and the lockdown. The second thing is Brexit,” says Etura.
Ibrahim echoes this: “The added stress and logistics of Brexit meant a lot of people returned home to the EU – initially because of Covid, but have now definitely decided to stay. This was a huge part of our workforce.”