Metropol

Yes, outside of the major cities is Pret really a thing?

Pret skews middle class London based journalists pretty highly.

See also the way every journalist spoke about Greggs sausage rolls as if they were from another planet, the last time they were in the news.

I guess that's just it. Wondered if I was missing something more. Just realised there's five Prets in my city now (and another at the airport) but still easily dwarfed by numbers of Subway/Greggs.

I also hadn't realised quite how many were in London - ¾ of their branches, apparently.

It's a bit of lazy shorthand, but I guess does represent quite a bit of the service sector when you consider their workers and whether their custom has dropped because of people working from home or having lost their jobs

Yesterday's announcement from the PM didn't really give much hope for the hospitality sector in general. My other half works in workplace catering, and most of her client base have gone from trying to encourage people back to the office to closing entire sites. Unless the Chancellor comes out with some new support package for employers, she's expecting to be taken off furlough to do lots of redundancy consultations then be made redundant herself.

Just heard about Blackpool having new restrictions. I was there last week and people just weren't giving a s**t about it. Chances are they'll be moaning. Well they should have listened to what was being said.

Nezzac1 wrote: Fri 25 Sep, 2020 18.50 Just heard about Blackpool having new restrictions. I was there last week and people just weren't giving a s**t about it. Chances are they'll be moaning. Well they should have listened to what was being said.

The people of Blackpool are “moaning” because it’s been brought about by visitors to the town.

all new Phil wrote: Fri 25 Sep, 2020 19.10

Nezzac1 wrote: Fri 25 Sep, 2020 18.50 Just heard about Blackpool having new restrictions. I was there last week and people just weren't giving a s**t about it. Chances are they'll be moaning. Well they should have listened to what was being said.

The people of Blackpool are “moaning” because it’s been brought about by visitors to the town.

Would they prefer visitors were banned or heavily restricted, do you think?

Most of the people I know, probably, yes. The local council wants to encourage people to visit (extending the illuminations through until Christmas etc) but that doesn’t mean locals agree.

thegeek wrote: Wed 23 Sep, 2020 21.45 I also hadn't realised quite how many were in London - ¾ of their branches, apparently.

It's a bit of lazy shorthand, but I guess does represent quite a bit of the service sector when you consider their workers and whether their custom has dropped because of people working from home or having lost their jobs

Did they not start out specifically as a London-based chain though? Certainly it wasn't *that* long ago that the only one I knew of in the entirety of the south west was in Bristol (and at the top of Park Street at that), and lunch from Pret was an essential part of a trip to London as they seemed a bit of a London curiosity to me.

Rising competition probably hasn't helped either (although outside of London of course Pret would be the new competition to other established competitors). It seems like every man and his dog decided that a coffee shop was the way forward with an inordinate number of them in seemingly every high street in the land now. I can see the attraction - a venture requiring relatively little capital and relatively low staff costs delivering huge margins. However it quickly became an over-saturated market with too many players all after the same customers. Even pre-Covid Starbucks and Greggs seemed to be rationalising their store estate and closing stores as leases end.

Yesterday's announcement from the PM didn't really give much hope for the hospitality sector in general. My other half works in workplace catering, and most of her client base have gone from trying to encourage people back to the office to closing entire sites. Unless the Chancellor comes out with some new support package for employers, she's expecting to be taken off furlough to do lots of redundancy consultations then be made redundant herself.

The new scheme is not exactly good. Worker works 33% of their hours for 77% of their pay but with 55% of it paid for by the employer and only 22% by the government. It doesn't matter how you juggle it or which heartstrings you tug on, you are asking employers in industries already under threat to pay for hours not being worked. If the worker was important enough to them that they didn't want to lose them then they would already have proposed some sort of arrangement with the employee. But when the bulk of the workforce in retail and hospitality are viewed as low skilled and replaceable to the point of being disposable, and with low average tenures not even seeing much (if any) of a redundancy liability, I can't see employers queuing up for this when they could just cut hours/let go and re-rerecruit to the hours they want and have none of the liability. But then I'm sure Suank knows this. He budgeted for a 3 month furlough scheme to get us through 3 months of restrictions, not for the mess without end this situation has become.

Whataday wrote: Wed 23 Sep, 2020 19.58 Pret skews middle class London based journalists pretty highly.

See also the way every journalist spoke about Greggs sausage rolls as if they were from another planet, the last time they were in the news.

Yes if they wanted to be less London centric they’d focus on Greggs rather than Pret, and probably Costa rather than Starbucks as well.

I think there is about 4 in Leeds but then non anywhere else in West Yorks. There are probably about 50 Greggs in the county, whereas I’m not even sure there is a Greggs in central London

Andrew wrote: Sat 26 Sep, 2020 21.32

I think there is about 4 in Leeds but then non anywhere else in West Yorks. There are probably about 50 Greggs in the county, whereas I’m not even sure there is a Greggs in central London

A quick postcode check of W1 shows 19 Greggs outlets around that part of Central London, which in comparison to Pret is tiny.

Go outside of Central London and there's a Greggs in nearly every high street in the 'burbs.