Two hospitality businesses, one Somerset town (Part I)
Two hospitality businesses, one Somerset town (Part I)
What it’s like to open – and close – a hospo business right now
Well hello there, and good morning. The next two issues of The Wallfish Journal are about what it’s like to run a hospitality business in this current economic climate.
Part I is about the challenges of opening such a business, especially when so many are closing at what appears to be the fastest rate ever.
Part II, coming next week, will dive into the experience of a local business owner whose restaurant has succumbed to the various economic pressures wreaking havoc right now.
To receive Part II in your inbox next week, sign up for a paid subscription to The Wallfish Journal. If you just want to read the story and feel like unsubscribing straight after, then go ahead – I won’t judge.
What it’s like to open a hospitality business (in Somerset) right now
Some of your favourite cafes, pubs, and restaurants are having a hard time of it at the moment.
You could almost say the same about the restaurant industry at just about any other point in time, but the fact is hospitality businesses have arguably never seen it worse. And, for a lot of them, it’s terminal – during the last financial quarter of last year (i.e. the most recent record to date), more restaurants closed than during any other, as the UK economy, albeit briefly, dipped into a recession.
And, since inflation rates for restaurants crept up further in January and February, coupled with a historically slow stretch of the year (made even worse by an uncharacteristically slow festive period), things don’t seem to be improving for the first quarter of 2024.
Needless to say, many business owners in hospitality – an industry which customarily operates on slim margins – are clinging on by the nails. Although, some are managing better than others. “This place sprung up on us really,” says Amber Smithwick while behind the till in Tondo, a shop serving on-the-go Filipino comfort food that she and husband Ross – contrary to the trend – opened three weeks ago in Frome. “We were like, ‘should we risk it?’ Which we always seem to do. I know it sounds so cliché, but if it feels right, and you feel like you can make a go of it, what do you really have to lose?”
The couple also run Aurora Kusina (Filipino too, but in restaurant form) in Shepton, which they opened in June 2022, and pop up peddling Filipino street food at various markets in Bristol. “I think we actually opened at the hardest point,” says Amber. “We started the [street food] business during COVID, and then the costs of things really escalated – things like cooking oil and gas.”
This was, at the time, widely reported in the media. And while those overheads no doubt had an effect, they’ve largely started to stabilise more recently. Arguably worse – but not so well documented – is the amount of debt accumulated during the various crises in recent years, especially not helped when repayment of those debts, such as loans, is hampered by rising interest rates.
“What’s happening is not surprising, to be honest,” Amber says of the recent spate of closures nationwide. “If you've taken out a bank loan to start your business, you then have to pay that back alongside the extortionate rates, alongside the labour, and alongside your rent and ingredients.”
For Amber and Ross, that’s been much less of a problem. They have, somewhat uniquely, gone about funding their ventures by saving up while both working full-time jobs. It’s a more challenging way to do it in the short-term, but it has its advantages in the long run.
Indeed, Amber surmises many of the closures happening now to be a kind of lag from the cumulative pressures that have manifested over the last four years. “People are really trying to stay afloat,” she says, “just trying to push through, and thinking that it will continue to get better. As things have started to kind of go down in price now, I think people are being hopeful. I know that I’d do the same.”
Nonetheless, it’s tempting to think that a more recognised concept in Britain – such as a burger joint or a sandwich shop – would be a surer bet at a time when the industry’s on its proverbial knees, and people are more conscious of what they spend and where they spend it. Rather than something based around a cuisine that, in Somerset and even in Bristol, is basically non-existent.
Then again, Tondo, and Aurora Kusina before it, have a raison d’etre beyond what is sympathetic to the market. The Shepton restaurant is named after Aurora, Amber’s Filipino mother, who grew up in Tondo (in Manila) and was known for her ‘epic banquets’. The restaurant, if not the woman it’s named after, is directly and almost solely responsible for thousands of Somersetians being introduced to – if not infatuated with – items like lechon (pork, especially form a spit-roasted pig), adobo (an unofficial dish of the Philippines of meat or veg braised in soy, vinegar, and garlic), ube (a purple sweet potato native to the Philippines), langka (jackfruit) and hearty noodle sopas (soups).
“My dad and my brother live in the Philippines,” Amber says. “So this is a way of connecting with my family. That’s probably why it's easier for us – because we have that kind of deep connection to our story.”
The degree of local unfamiliarity towards Filipino cuisine meant it was probably a good idea to ease people of Somerset into the likes of adobo, sopas, and langka humba. Which in Tondo’s case involved dishing out, on opening day, 200 free lunches, and what would normally equate to about £1,800 of food. “We don't pay for media [coverage], or anything like that,” Amber says. “Because I'd prefer it if people tried our food first, and because people can be nervous to try something new. Of those 200 people, a lot of them came back.”
Though we’re talking about Frome – one of the most obvious places in Somerset that a new opening would be embraced – eating out in town has not fared well of late. Recent hospitality closures – including Hamper, Lo Rapitenc, 8 Stony Street, and Burrito Boi – could lead someone to make the conclusion that, if they couldn’t make it work, why could someone else? And for those who are barely making it work, do they really need more businesses vying for the same market?1
“That’s something we get a lot in Shepton,” Amber says. “But I'd love for more places to open. It'd be brilliant – it gives a reason to come to that place as a whole, and it really helps with the town economy. It's not a kind of competition. It shouldn't be, especially within hospitality at the moment. People should be supporting one another.”
The reality is these venues closed down due to a variety of reasons (see next week’s WFJ for more on that) – none of which relating to a crowded market