The names of businesses mentioned over the past few pages - Chiquitos, Bella Italia, Frankie and Bennies - are closing for the same reasons Prezzo is closing, and why Jamie Oliver's ventures closed. At some point, fashion and its fickle finger chose casual dining as the next big thing. And for years casual dining seemed to be unstoppable: social media loved the mega-burgers and trendy settings, employment was high and interest rates low, and people felt comfortable with spending money in restaurants often without the need to plan/book/organise etc.
Causal dining has been hit by wave after wave, long before COVID. The concept of the High Street, where so many are based, has been chipped away at for years. Local councils rarely have cheap rent, neither do shopping centre landlords. Casual dining became too pricey, too much of a trivial reason to spend money, and the fickle finger moved on, suggesting people order food online and get "meal packs" delivered to their door. Social media clicked its fingers and chose to become bored by casual dining's predictable aesthetic.
I think the last few posts have been quite correct, in that people will see a gap in the market (and plenty of empty units) once COVID and restrictions are out of the way. But we are into the era of "new normal". And pubs, clubs, restaurants, they will all have to suffer before things get better. But also, people who like to eat out want a treat to feel like a treat. Chiquitos is a good example of how to turn an experience into a cheap, tawdry party-trick. If someone wants to reinvent casual dining, then they need to think about the definition of "casual" very carefully.
