BENGALURU: The pub city is seemingly losing its spirit with “loss in business” by almost 25% in the last quarter. Sources in the food & beverage (F&B) industry told TNIE that the overall footfalls in their outlets have gradually reduced over the last few months.
“There are several reasons for loss of business. Steep increase in Additional Excise Duty (AED) on Indian Made Liquor, fluctuation in beer prices within this year, long weekends, job insecurity and layoffs, heavy rain, bad road condition, traffic and lack of adequate parking space in the city have had a cumulative effect on people dining out,” said some of the owners of pubs and restobars.
“We see many of our regular diners holding back. Corporate companies are cutting cost and people are becoming cautious spenders,” said the owners. One of the most perceptive shifts is the loss of footfalls in pubs and bars in IT hubs in the city, they added. “We manage to do 80% of our business in the CBD, but in the IT corridors, there has been a perceptible reduction by at least 20% and it’s huge,” said owners of some leading pubs and bars.
They added that growing job insecurity and layoffs, especially in the IT sector, which is the main source of revenue for the F&B industry, high rentals, cost of manpower and living are the reasons why people who earlier dined out every weekend have now cut down on their spending.
‘Tier-2 cities doing brisk biz’
“There is not one reason why business slowed down in the last quarter. People make use of the long weekend and go out of the city for a break. Tier-2 cities are doing brisk business because of this. The two-day weekend is the mainstay of our business.
Our places warm up from Friday night onward, but that’s not the case every weekend now. Heavy rain has made commuting a nightmare. We strongly recommend hiring drivers or using taxi services to prevent drunk driving, but booking a taxi is not easy, especially when it rains.
These are practical difficulties. People would much rather stay at home, watch films or serials on OTT and order in dinner,” said the owner of a Popular restobar.
“Post the pandemic, the industry had suddenly grown and the number of pubs, bars and resto-bars had increased with huge expenditure on large spaces and table covers. There is an overkill and the market is saturated with too many watering holes. Sustaining them while maintaining quality and service is a challenge. Some businesses are suffering because of this as well,” they added.
