Slash price of meals after 9pm to save London's nightlife, says top chef
Restaurateurs in London should consider cutting the price of meals after 9pm to help save the capital's dying nightlife, one of Britain's top chefs has said.
Vivek Singh, the owner of the Cinnamon Kitchen restaurant group, said offering discounted meals later in the evening could aid business owners as they battle to revive the capital's late-night economy.
He suggested they could mimic the 'dynamic pricing' used by airlines, where tickets for less popular flights are sold at cheaper prices.
Mr Singh said: 'Demand needs to be created. Sectors like airlines, they're all dynamically priced. Nobody questions why their seat is half the price it was last night.'
Mr Singh is widely regarded as one of the UK's most influential and successful Indian chefs. He opened his first restaurant, the flagship Cinnamon Club, in 2001, and has since grown the company into a group of five across the UK and one in Dubai.
His comments come amid a mounting outcry over the capital's declining nightlife. Hundreds of venues have closed since the pandemic, during which restaurants were forced shut for months at a time.
The closures have been blamed on a combination of soaring costs, sky-high taxes, draconian licensing rules and younger people going home earlier and drinking less.
Mr Singh said: 'It's completely unlike any other time in the past 25 years that I have been here in London. We never had to encourage people to book a table at 9pm or beyond, it was just unthinkable.
'When I opened The Cinnamon Club, we were trading from 12pm to 2.30pm and then opening at 6pm and taking bookings until 10pm because there were still people looking to book at 10pm in the night. Now we take bookings only until 9.30pm and we barely get any [at 9:30].'
He said there had been an increase in people eating far earlier in the day, with an increase in diners wanting to eat as early as 5pm.
Mr Singh said: 'If you're trying to change diner behaviour, or footfall, or demographic, and want to do something rather than just sit there and complain that there's not enough business, then this is one of the things that people will consider.'
Ministers have said they will hand fresh powers to Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, allowing him to 'call in' blocked planning applications, and have kicked off consultations with other industry chiefs about how best to revive the UK's nightlife.
However, restaurants are also grappling with increased taxes and labour costs in the wake of the Chancellor's Budget. The Telegraph revealed earlier this month that some pubs are now calling last orders as early as 9pm to cut costs.
The practice of dynamic pricing, though common in other industries, has proved controversial when implemented in pubs, restaurants and bars in the past. Pub giant Stonegate, for instance, was heavily criticised when it emerged it was charging customers more for pints at busy times in 2023.
Mr Singh stressed that he does not believe restaurants should increase prices at busier times. He added: 'The bit that I'm talking about is not necessarily surge pricing, it is just a slightly more refined way of discounting. You're not going to put your tasting menu up to £150 just because a lot of people want to have it at that time.'
He added he believed restaurateurs had previously stayed away from practices such as dynamic pricing owing to a 'romantic' view of how hospitality businesses should operate.
However, Mr Singh said: 'We live in a totally different world now, and the way people are both experiencing, transacting and consuming is so different that it does require a completely different prism to look at it through.'
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