18 August 2026
The Vacancy Figure Nobody Celebrated
UK hospitality vacancies fell to a five-year low in May 2026. The data does not show a staffing recovery. It shows a sector that stopped advertising roles it can no longer afford to fill.
Read on →Notes from the last-minute table.
How the model works, why we only list tonight's empty seats, and the odd thing we learn running it.
17 August 2026
What the Supermarket Did to Tuesday Night
UK casual dining and pub traffic fell 8% in Q1 2026 while retail food inflation held near 2%. The gap between eating in and eating out is wider than it has been in years.
Read on →16 August 2026
The Kitchen That Was Not in the Announcement
Burnham's 20 percent business rates cut reached pubs, clubs, and live music venues. The restaurant sector watched and waited for its name to appear.
Read on →15 August 2026
The Thirty-Cover Room
Ben and Pamela McKellar have run the Gingerman in Brighton's Norfolk Square since 1998, thirty covers of some of the most honest cooking in the city, and are closing this summer because rising costs have made the economics of doing it properly unworkable.
Read on →14 August 2026
The Room the Relief Missed
New analysis from Price Bailey shows restaurants are now at greater insolvency risk than pubs, just as the government's latest rate relief went to pubs and not to restaurants.
Read on →13 August 2026
What a Fifth Off Actually Buys
The government confirmed October 28 as Budget day and announced a fifth off business rates for pubs. We run pubs in Sussex. Here is what a fifth actually covers, and what it does not.
Read on →12 August 2026
The Figure June Could Not Hold
July 2026 produced 327 hospitality insolvencies in England and Wales, the highest monthly total since November 2024. The World Cup gave June a reprieve. July had no such cover.
Read on →11 August 2026
The Week the Schools Go Back
In three weeks, Brighton empties of families and the midweek problem returns. August earns well. September is what you do with what August made.
Read on →10 August 2026
The Eleven-Year Room
Berber & Q held its final dinner service in Haggerston on July 31, eleven years after Josh Katz opened the railway arch. Longevity proves endurance. It does not prove the economics work.
Read on →9 August 2026
What the Rates Cut Covers
In late July, the Burnham government confirmed a 20 percent business rates cut for pubs from April 2027. The typical pub saves an estimated £1,100. That number needs context.
Read on →8 August 2026
The Thirty-Eight That Did Not Sell
When BrewDog entered administration in March, Tilray paid £33m for the brand, the brewery, and eleven brewpubs. Nobody paid anything for the other thirty-eight bars.
Read on →7 August 2026
The Allergy the Booking Doesn't Mention
The UK's food allergen regulations now cover 14 major allergens, touch two pieces of legislation, and apply to every service a kitchen runs, yet the compliance cost features in almost none of the hospitality policy conversation.
Read on →6 August 2026
The Format the Chain Could Not Hold
Whitbread confirmed the closure dates for all its Beefeater and Brewers Fayre sites on July 27, ending nearly 200 branded pub-restaurant operations and 3,800 jobs by September 10.
Read on →5 August 2026
What a Visitor Levy Does to the Room
Brighton is debating an overnight visitor levy, and the cost that worries the hospitality sector most is not the charge itself but the table it empties before service starts.
Read on →4 August 2026
What Flat Actually Looks Like
UK licensed hospitality ended June with 98,564 outlets, virtually unchanged from three months before. Underneath that number, 1,839 businesses closed in the same quarter, and 1,794 opened to replace them.
Read on →3 August 2026
The Cover the Coffee Shop Took
Restaurant spending fell 3 percent in the first half of 2026 while coffee shops and food-to-go both grew, which means consumers are still eating out but increasingly choosing a faster, easier format.
Read on →2 August 2026
The Hours the Kitchen Cannot Promise
The government's consultation on guaranteed hours under the Employment Rights Act closes on 25 August. Hospitality runs on flexible contracts, and the outcome changes how every kitchen builds its rota.
Read on →1 August 2026
The Pint That Pays for the Kitchen
The average UK pint hit £5.34 in July, up 3.3 percent on last year. The reason it keeps rising is not a secret: the bar is the only margin that actually covers a hospitality business.
Read on →31 July 2026
The Kitchen That Scale Could Not Save
Whitbread confirmed this week that all 195 Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants close in September. The CEO named the costs. They are the same costs every operator knows.
Read on →30 July 2026
The Catch That Costs More in June
Fish and seafood prices rose 6.4 percent year-on-year in June, the highest category in the Foodservice Price Index. Brighton is a seafood city, and that number lands in the kitchen.
Read on →29 July 2026
When the Numbers Improved
In June 2026, UK hospitality insolvencies fell 23 percent year-on-year. The World Cup and warm weather drove the decline. Neither of those things is happening in July.
Read on →28 July 2026
The Bank Holiday That Has to Earn September
The August bank holiday is four weeks away. Every kitchen in Brighton is building toward it. What it earns on the weekend itself is only part of what it has to carry.
Read on →27 July 2026
The Break That Stopped at the Bar
On Wednesday, Andy Burnham announced a 20% business rates cut for pubs, clubs and live music venues. Restaurants were not on the list. The distinction matters more than it looks.
Read on →26 July 2026
The Night After the Parade
Brighton Pride brings over 300,000 people to the city this weekend. The venues on the route will fill before the floats pass. The Monday kitchen still has to earn what Monday earns.
Read on →25 July 2026
The Kitchen Without a Screen
UK pubs posted their strongest sales month of 2026 in June while UK restaurants recorded their second-worst. Both operated through the same World Cup.
Read on →24 July 2026
The Heatwave and the Empty Table
Analysis of June's heatwave found UK hospitality bookings dropped by nearly half when temperatures peaked. August is still ahead, and the fixed costs do not scale down with the mercury.
Read on →23 July 2026
After the School Run
Brighton schools broke up this week and six weeks of peak trade begins. The conversation happening less, and mattering more, is about the first week of September.
Read on →22 July 2026
What Burnham Inherits
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on Monday. UKHospitality congratulated him and within hours asked for the same thing it has been asking every government for years.
Read on →21 July 2026
After the Final
The World Cup final ran on Saturday night. The tournament that packed UK pubs for five weeks is over, and August begins without it.
Read on →20 July 2026
What August Actually Earns
Brighton schools break up Wednesday and the six-week peak begins. The room fills, the city changes, and the economics of every cover quietly shift in ways the booking chart does not show.
Read on →19 July 2026
The Law Nobody Argued With
Martyn's Law received Royal Assent in April 2025, new guidance landed earlier this year, and venues with 200 or more people expected on site have until Spring 2027 to be compliant. It is the right law. It is also the latest item on a list that does not stop growing.
Read on →18 July 2026
The Venue That Cannot Break Even
A joint survey by UKHospitality and three trade bodies found that 23 percent of UK pubs and restaurants are currently operating at a loss: not struggling, not tight, but actively losing money on every service they run.
Read on →17 July 2026
Thirteen Months Behind Inflation
The NIQ RSM Hospitality Business Tracker has recorded thirteen consecutive months of like-for-like sales growth below the rate of inflation. The number is positive. What it is hiding is not.
Read on →16 July 2026
The Tipping Code the Government Withdrew
On 13 July, the government pulled a draft tipping code of practice with no explanation, leaving hospitality operators less than three months from a legal change they cannot fully prepare for.
Read on →15 July 2026
The Shift You Cannot Cancel
The Employment Rights Act 2025 brings shift cancellation compensation for zero-hours workers from October 2026, and hospitality employs more of them than any other sector in the UK.
Read on →14 July 2026
Sixteen Percent in July
CGA research published this week found only 16% of independent hospitality operators feel optimistic about their own business, with polling conducted in late May and June as the season they depend on was arriving.
Read on →13 July 2026
The Fee You Cannot Pass On
A competition tribunal found in 2025 that Visa and Mastercard interchange fees were unlawful and that hospitality businesses absorbed them in full without passing a penny to consumers. The appeal is running, the damages are years away, and the fee processes on every cover regardless.
Read on →12 July 2026
The Bar You Cannot Choose
CAMRA's new report shows demand for independent beer runs 280 percent higher than its share of the pub market, while indie brewers are locked out of supplying 63 percent of UK pubs.
Read on →11 July 2026
The Kitchen at Forty Degrees
The government is consulting on a maximum working temperature, and kitchens can hit 40 degrees in a July heatwave. The gap between those two facts is what the industry is waiting to understand.
Read on →10 July 2026
The Diner on Medication
RSM UK's new survey finds a quarter of GLP-1 users eat out less often and almost a third drink less alcohol. For a sector whose economics run through the bar, that is a new kind of pressure.
Read on →9 July 2026
The Loan That Does Not Take a Night Off
The Bank of England held at 3.75% again in June. For hospitality businesses still carrying debt from the pandemic years, the repayment goes out on a calendar, not a booking sheet.
Read on →8 July 2026
After the Kitchen Closed
England vs Mexico kicked off at 1am and the government gave pubs until 5am to trade. The dining rooms that were already dark by then are still the harder problem.
Read on →7 July 2026
The Level Six Kitchen
From July 2025, chefs and bar managers were removed from the Skilled Worker visa list. The international recruitment route formally closed, and nothing has replaced it.
Read on →6 July 2026
The Twelve-Cover Question
A growing number of UK chefs are deliberately running dining rooms of eight to twelve covers, near-zero waste, tiny teams. It is a rational answer to the cost structure of hospitality, and it is not available to most operators.
Read on →5 July 2026
The Children's Menu Rate
From 25 June, children's meals in qualifying restaurants attract 5% VAT rather than 20%, and the adult food on the same table attracts exactly what it always has.
Read on →4 July 2026
The Room You Cannot Share
UK food halls grew from 114 to 149 venues in a year while traditional restaurants keep closing. What the model solved, and what it cannot.
Read on →3 July 2026
The Tourist Who Did Not Come
The Holiday Tax Bill, confirmed in the King's Speech, adds a nightly levy on top of the UK's existing 20 percent VAT on accommodation. Brighton's kitchens feel the difference.
Read on →2 July 2026
The Fee for Being Found
Booking platforms charge UK restaurants per cover every time a customer discovers them through the network, and the fee runs whether the kitchen is profitable or not.
Read on →1 July 2026
The Prep That Goes Nowhere
Food waste costs UK hospitality around £10,000 per outlet every year, and new rules from March mean kitchens now have to track it separately.
Read on →30 June 2026
The Sober Table
A third of UK adult drinkers now order low or no-alcohol options regularly or occasionally. For venues whose economics run through the bar, this is not a lifestyle trend. It is a margin question.
Read on →29 June 2026
What a Resignation Actually Costs
UK hospitality turns over more than half its workforce every year. The cost of replacing one person is buried in the P&L, which is why most operators underestimate it.
Read on →28 June 2026
The Bill That Runs Anyway
Transmission network charges on UK business electricity rose sharply from April, adding a fixed cost that does not reduce however lean a kitchen runs.
Read on →27 June 2026
The Night They Did Not Open
A joint survey by UKHospitality and the BBPA found 42 percent of hospitality businesses are cutting trading hours. Closing a night saves some costs. It does not save all of them.
Read on →26 June 2026
What Nine Percent Does to a Menu
The Food and Drink Federation has revised its food inflation forecast to at least nine percent by the end of 2026. That number lands differently in a kitchen already carrying everything else.
Read on →25 June 2026
The Night Without a Game
England's World Cup opener drove a 293 percent surge in pub bookings, but the nights between games still cost exactly the same to run.
Read on →24 June 2026
Two Hundred Thousand Signatures
Tom Kerridge's VAT campaign reached 220,000 signatures before its consumer launch on 1 July. The sector has not spoken this clearly about the same problem in years.
Read on →23 June 2026
Two Pubs a Day
The BBPA recorded 161 pub closures in the first quarter of 2026, up 26 percent on the year before. Almost two a day, in rooms that were still serving a brisk trade.
Read on →22 June 2026
What a Good Summer Covers
Brighton fills up in June and every kitchen goes into the season needing it to earn more than last year, because the fixed costs it has to cover did not stand still.
Read on →21 June 2026
What a Michelin Star Cannot Buy
Simpsons in Birmingham held a Michelin star since 1999 and traded for 32 years. In May it closed after three failed sale attempts. The economics do not care about the accolades.
Read on →20 June 2026
What the Platform Takes
Delivery platforms take their commission before the kitchen reaches its margin, on every order, good night or bad. For most operators, it looks like growth and earns like a cost.
Read on →19 June 2026
The Charge Nobody Has to Pay
The UK restaurant service charge must be optional by law, and more than one in five diners now refuse it. That leaves operators covering the gap somewhere else.
Read on →18 June 2026
A Full Room Is Not Enough
Sambal Shiok closed in May after eight years, despite a loyal following and a room that kept filling. Footfall was not the problem.
Read on →17 June 2026
The Selective Diner
UK consumers are going out less often in 2026, but spending more when they do. That shift makes the quiet night harder to fill and the 4pm decision more important than ever.
Read on →16 June 2026
The Rota Was Already Set
The National Living Wage rose again in April. That changes what an empty table costs, even if nobody in the kitchen is doing the maths that way.
Read on →15 June 2026
The Rates Reckoning
The 2026 business rates revaluation was meant to modernise the system. For venues in recovering food cities, it arrived as a bill shock on top of everything else.
Read on →14 June 2026
The Table That Never Came
A no-show leaves the table set, the cover prepped, and the kitchen one booking short. Here is what it actually costs, and the seat it cannot explain away.
Read on →13 June 2026
Why Halfseat is tonight only
We only list the seats a kitchen was going to leave empty. Never the ones it could sell at full price. Here is why that rule matters.
Read on →13 June 2026
Six Closures a Day
UK hospitality is losing six businesses a day in 2026, and the industry's usual response, deep discounting, is the one thing guaranteed to make it worse.
Read on →12 June 2026
The twenty percent problem
A restaurant keeps a sliver of every pound that crosses the pass. Here is the maths most diners never see, and why discounting is the last thing a good kitchen should do.
Read on →11 June 2026
Why we started in Brighton
We run pubs and kitchens across Sussex. Halfseat started with a problem we had ourselves, on a quiet Tuesday, looking at a room full of empty tables.
Read on →