A Brighton pub is to close this week, giving staff just three days’ notice, it was announced today (Tuesday 22 July).
BrewDog is to shut its pub in Grand Parade, Brighton, on the corner of Kingswood Street, almost 10 years after it opened in August 2015.
The Scottish company is closing 10 bars in the next few days, at the cost of about 100 jobs. The closures include the chain’s first ever pub in Aberdeen.
BrewDog chief executive James Taylor said: “It has simply not been possible to find a formula to make these bars viable due to their size, location and other limiting factors.”
All 10 bars are due to close on Saturday (26 July) – before a 14-day staff consultation ends – with the move said to be part of a fresh strategy for BrewDog’s hospitality division.
Mr Taylor said that the business was still looking to grow its bar business, with plans for more larger bars in “destination” locations and to open smaller community bars.
The company said: “We can confirm that following a review of our bars business we have made the difficult decision to close 10 bars which reflects a more focused strategy and a rationalisation of our bar footprint.
“This decision is not simply a response to the challenging UK hospitality market but a proactive decision to redefine the bar division’s focus for long-term and profitable growth.”
The company said that this accounted for “ongoing industry challenges, including rising costs, increased regulation and economic pressures”.
And it added: “We are working hard to minimise the impact on our people and we expect to redeploy many affected team members across the BrewDog network.
“For those leaving the business, we’re providing as much support as possible during this transition.”
The premises was previously known as the Blind Tiger, an independent live music venue. It opened in 2010 and closed in 2014 after a noise abatement notice was issued.
In the 1990s, the venue was known as Hector’s House, and for many years before that it was the Norfolk.
Should have waited to after Pride weekend when it would have been full all weekend.
I was a great fan of ‘Hector’s House’ back in the day. But the fact this current version of a once-busy pub is now closing should send alarm bells across the city.
This won’t be the last pub or local boozer to close in the next year.
We might ask why this – and so many other pubs – are struggling? And the answer is on both sides of the business equation.
The increasing costs are:
1) Catering staff are scarce since Brexit, and pub and restaurant working hours are still not the choice for all, given the late nights, plus you’d only get minimum wage.
2) The pubs also have to pay higher refrigeration costs – because energy prices have gone up so much.
3) There’s also the recent increase in national insurance contributions.
4) The paper value of a pub is often worth more as a building plot, than as a pub.
The other side of the deal is they need customers – and no pub is busy right now, because most people are skint, facing mortgage increases or else spiralling rent and other domestic costs.
Plus the typical Brighton pub, now charging £6.50 for a pint, makes any visit unaffordable for anything other than a Saturday night treat.
There’s another city centre pub closeby, which is also up for sale. I’ve been going there for over 30 years and I do want to support the place, but recently we stopped going when they wanted £30+ for a very basic bottle of house wine.
It would be interesting to compare pub running costs now, and typical disposable income, with similar figures from the last Brighton pub boom which was back in the Webb-Kirby days.
Brexit no longer relevant as there is now a surplus of hospitality staff due to the sector not being able to afford the recent hikes in employers NI. your other points are salient. Pubs etc will be closing. They are unaffordable.
Brexit remains and will continue to remain a significant impact to our country’s trade agreements.
Brexit has never truly been delivered. Blame self serving politicians not the will of the people. So many commonsense actions could, and still should now, have been taken to prevent this countries decline.
Blaming Brexit is lazy by those who refuse to see that their ‘coloured team’ is part of the problem
Absolutely correct, all these factors. Plus the drinking culture in the UK has started to dissipate with younger people. If this is by true choice, or they just can’t afford to drink is another matter. For context, when I was 18 I could buy 2 pints with one hour’s pay easy. I doubt an 18 year old on NMW could.
It’s a very good point. I’m having to accept my age these days, but even my generation was less keen to drink, being more health-conscious, having other methods of socialising, and being financially savvy – it makes pubs not all that appealing.
It’s nothing personal to this pub group, but many people are realising that the benefits of alcoholic drinks are illusory while the cost is ever more real.
Brexit happened a decade ago! More likely “Pass the Buck”socialist fiscal policies from this current inept,lying administration putting the final nail in the coffin for leisure industries! But woke,fantasists with their schoolkid outlook on life don”t accept reality because that would upset their pathetic view of their on life! As they say,” ya can’t fix stupid” and “there’s none so dumb as them that won’t listen”! Reeves and the useless lefty flim flam mob are what those axioms are aimed at! Have fun playing politics now cuz ya won’t get the chance again you suckers@
I’m not sure there’s a coherent thought in there. I’m guessing you’re on your way back from the pub. Do you want to try again when you’re perhaps a bit more sober?
Please excusr the typos! I’m on a bus!
Wrong location, totally off pitch. Only popular with hipster types from London at the weekend.
Brighton and Hove has too much competition from fantastic beer places for this corporate operation to be viable.
Went in a few weeks ago as only had cash ( lost card) they didn’t accept cash so that was that.
Pleased it’s going. The beer is rubbish
It’s interesting to see how some people are still triggered by the word ‘Brexit’ , causing them to shout about all sorts of irrelevant issues like ‘woke’.
My sentence that included the B word was full of many other points, but it is true that Brexit initially led to a shortage of workers for the catering industry, and staff retention was also a problem for hotels, restaurants and pubs.
In this case the company offered national ‘living wages’, but then backtracked on that to try and save costs.
My main point is that all pubs are struggling, hit by both increases in running costs and by the huge loss of drinking customers and weekday regulars.
For my own Saturday night out three of us decided to try another pub, and we had a discussion about most places being too busy at weekends for us to get a seat. And then we found the chosen pub was actually empty, and, at 8.30pm on a Saturday night, we three were the only customers.
These are difficult times for most pubs.
It’s like some people latch onto just buzzwords, right?
What struck me is some of the disassociation between Brexit and how it affected not just in the immediate, but continues to do so on a wide variety of industries, challenges that continue to need addressing across elections, and will likely still be an issue in the next one.
Speaking on the death of the highstreet, and I’m including pubs for the sake of this, their decline has been steady regardless, due to many factors. I suspect the distribution of wealth in our society is getting more skewed and we are seeing the effects of that, one such way is the unaffordability of pubs.
The smoking ban destroyed pubs, as a fairer system would of been to have a 50/50 mix of smoking / non smoking pubs.. leaving it up to the landlord to decide and employ either smoking or non-smoking staff….
Why would anyone go to a pub, pay £6 for a beer and then stand in the street to drink it?
The smoking ban forced people onto the street where young people could see them, rather than being behind closed doors etc etc…
You reap what you sow and you sure as hell are reaping it now… Brighton is rubbish.. The 90’s were the last good times in Brighton…
Smoking ban had little impact on pubs decline in the UK, snotty service and being refered to as punters by uneducated plebs is more of a cause of decline, that and the service in most pubs is not woth the price of a pint or 3, with house prices and everything else sprinting up the cost escalator working guys will prioritise house and family first, beer later,, maybe. Yes some people still piss their life away on cheap drink n smokes but the guys who earn a wage are making other choices today,, pub’s not at the top of the list anymore.
The smoking ban might have affected pubs initially, back in 2007, but nowadays very few people smoke cigarettes, so outdoor spaces and pub gardens are made unpleasant by people there who still smoke.
You might argue that pub gardens banning outdoor smoking and vaping might get more people through the door.
On topic, the pub in question has no outdoor space, and that’s part of its problem, as a summer venue – and its nearest clientele base is lost once the Brighton Uni/Art College term time ends.
Ahh the brand of beer n beards!
Pubs are essentially local, that cater for their community – albeit with some visitors.
Brewdog will continue to close pubs and it’s brand decline …along with beards!
Anywhere that charges about £7 a pint will go to the wall.
Is some parts of Britain you can buy a pint for £1 and very widely in Blackpool you can get a variety of very good pints for about £1.70. I went away last month to a far-flung part of Britain and in one pub a pint of Ruddles was 99p.
There are too many pubs and the prices many are charging are through the roof – which means they cannot survive in this cost of living crisis. It’s little wonder the only pubs that are always packed and are Britain’s most popular pubs by a mile are Spoons pubs – perhaps because Sir Tim uses his big buying power, economies of scale and understanding of what people want (clean generous toilets, straightorward easy to understand affordable meals, unlimited refill coffees, cheap pints , luxury thick pile carpet, top brand condiments and none of this bearded, hard floored, pretentious ,craft ale nonsense.
Brewdog won’t be missed