Inside Hospitality in South Tyneside

National World - Broadcast Video

Experienced bar managers in South Shields speak about the changes and challenges for the hospitality sector.

Transcript

00:00 "Actually what we need to do is pull together locally, regionally, nationally as a hospitality.

00:06 We need to pull together. If everyone has a slice of the pie it's better than someone

00:11 trying to get all of the pie because it doesn't work. People need options, they want to go

00:15 from this bar and see live music and then go to that bar."

00:18 South Shields is well known for having given a lot of people in the North East some memorable

00:22 nights out. On the Shields Gazette website, photo galleries looking back at those great

00:27 times are always popular. But South Tyneside is far from immune to the downturn facing

00:32 the hospitality sector across the UK. In 2023, 6,180 hospitality venues in the UK permanently

00:41 closed and the number of nightclubs has almost halved in the past decade. Times are challenging

00:47 for North East nightlife and we've asked some of Shields' experienced bar managers for their

00:52 views on the situation.

00:53 "I'm Stephen Sullivan, I've worked in the hospitality trade for the last 19 years now

00:59 in South Tyneside. Everything from running my own bars, consulting other hospitality

01:06 venues and now I run an events company putting events on in hospitality venues. South Tyneside

01:14 has always had a really good and rich hospitality offering. You know, right from the sea front,

01:21 right the way down to the river front at this end and you know, you talk, I talk to people

01:25 older than me and we always talked about the circuit and when I first left school and went

01:31 to college, we did the circuit. You know, you'd start at the town hall and it didn't

01:34 matter what time you came out, you knew where everyone would be, they'd move around the

01:37 circuit."

01:38 Kathleen Brayne has been the licensee of the historic Shields pub, The Steamboat, for almost

01:43 four years at the time of recording and has worked there for close to 25.

01:47 "I'm very lucky in this pub that it is a destination pub because it's probably one

01:52 of the oldest pubs in South Shields."

01:54 We asked what, from our interviewees' point of view, is the biggest difference in night

01:58 time hospitality now compared with two decades ago.

02:01 "I think, well, the level of custom."

02:04 "I mean the pubs were so much busier 25 years ago. On a weekend we used to have six staff

02:08 on when I started as a barmaid and it was four or five deep at the bar, people waiting

02:14 for a drink and you just don't really see that now unless there's a big event on at

02:19 the local theatre, the customs house. Now it's a struggle to fill the pub constantly.

02:27 Certainly evenings are getting quieter, the weekends still do well but it's harder and

02:33 harder to make a living now."

02:34 "We've seen a rapid decline in the last five years but I would say in the last ten

02:40 years the decline has been going steadily and it's just sped up over the last sort of

02:45 times. Drinking habits have changed over the years. I think we're seeing a huge rise in

02:54 the popularity of non-alcoholic drinks, not just locally but nationally. It's one of the

03:00 fastest growing trends there is. So particularly in under 25s we're seeing a rise in that

03:09 drinking of non-alcoholic drinks but I'm not sure that hospitality venues have got

03:17 on to it quick enough. A lot changed obviously, the pandemic sped things up, the cost of living

03:21 crisis has made it even more rapid again and I think it's just been so quick it's been

03:28 very difficult for us but the hospitality venues in particular to keep up with those

03:33 trends and be able to sustain the level of custom that they were used to."

03:37 As part of this feature we had planned an interview here at Clover and Wolfe in the

03:41 town centre. Unfortunately at the time of recording the bar has suddenly shut down only

03:46 a few days ago.

03:47 While we cannot speculate on the reasons behind the closure of this particular establishment,

03:51 it does come as one more example of just how precarious the sector has become.

03:57 We asked about the lasting effects of the Covid pandemic.

04:00 "It was very tough for everyone. It was new, no one quite knew what they were doing.

04:06 Rules and regulations were coming out that no one quite knew what they were or understood

04:11 them. So it was in that period that I set up a forum for local hospitality owners to

04:18 sort of go through with the council and give our understanding of it and give venues back

04:24 the understanding so that they could best equip themselves to cope with it. And you

04:31 know there was a period when we came out of the pandemic that was really great. Table

04:34 service had returned and people were booking into venues and turning up and spending money

04:39 and wanting to be there because they'd missed it."

04:41 "I was very lucky that when I took over I rang round a lot of the regulars, messaged

04:47 a lot of the regulars saying you know it's now my pub, please come out and support us.

04:51 And I would say 95% of them did. Some were still scared to come out. Some still come

04:56 in now with masks on. So people are still four years late, they're still very cautious."

05:01 "But then everything changed again. Once the rules and regulations changed it was yet

05:07 another change for hospitality venues having to remove those things they'd put in place.

05:11 And then not knowing that in that period of time, those years, where people were at home

05:20 their habits had changed completely and people had got used to being at home. Where they'd

05:24 been used to it was you know just ordinary. You go out every Friday, Saturday or whatever

05:30 or you go out during the days and stuff. All of their habits had completely changed. And

05:35 we saw I think over the last, just before the pandemic it was becoming particularly

05:40 bad in younger people in that they want to go out, they just can't afford it. So what

05:46 they're doing is they're going to the supermarkets where they can buy it cheaper than in a hospitality

05:51 venue. They're drinking in the house and they're not coming out until 11, 12 o'clock at night."

05:56 "The supermarkets, it's so cheap to buy alcohol and drink in the house. You know, why would

06:01 you want to come out when you can stay in the house for a quarter of the price? So you've

06:06 got to really work at keeping your pub busy all the time. So it hasn't really changed

06:11 so much for us. We do get a lot of younger people for the Customs House Theatre coming

06:18 in but really we're not a young person's pub. You know we're known traditionally for being

06:23 a real ale pub, for whiskeys and rums, because we're on the river we specialise in rums."

06:29 "Every generation is different. You know, we have the mining generation, I work in a

06:34 lot of pubs that are open during the day and that generation still go out six, seven days

06:41 a week, have a couple of pints every afternoon. And that was their generation, that's what

06:44 they did. You know, they went and worked hard, they finished the shift, they went to the

06:48 pub with their mates, that's what they did. My generation, when I first started going

06:55 out, I mean we were out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we could afford

07:00 to. I think where we are locally there is a different factor there than there is nationally

07:07 in that our college and education provisions changed, so there was less A-levels. Your

07:14 A-level students are those, you meet them, it's a microcosm and you all become very close

07:18 friends and you want to go out and you want to socialise. You know, similar to being at

07:22 work, you've been in education every day, you want to go out. We don't offer many A-levels

07:27 now at South Tyneside College, so all those students are now in the cities, they're in

07:32 Sunderland and Newcastle. And I think generationally it does change and hospitality venues have

07:39 always been really good at adapting to those changes. I think, you know, even now when

07:44 things are probably the hardest I think it's ever been for hospitality, people are doing

07:49 their best to make sure that it's still there and it's still provided for people.

07:54 What could the government do that would help the situation quickly?

07:57 Well, it would be nice if they reduced the beer duty massively.

08:01 We are harshly done by in terms of VAT and beer duty compared to the rest of Europe and

08:07 I think that is probably the single biggest thing that's really damaging the hospitality

08:15 economy right now.

08:16 Even when they freeze beer duty or they reduce beer duty, it doesn't get passed on to the

08:20 pubs, it gets passed on to the breweries so they don't pay as much but they don't drop

08:25 our prices and then when the minimum wage goes up and it's just gone up a pound an hour,

08:30 we have to put our prices up to cover the cost of that. Obviously people have a right

08:33 to earn a decent wage as well and I pay all my staff the same rate so I pay my 18 to 20

08:41 year olds the same rate as a 25 year old because they're all doing the same job.

08:45 Because the cost of living is so high, alcohol costs are so high, we have to give them something

08:49 more. Whether it be something as simple as a quiz night, you know, or your bingos or stuff

08:56 like that or whether it's bigger events, people need to feel that if they're being charged

09:03 £5 a pint or this, that they're getting their money's worth. You can't just open your doors

09:08 to a venue now and go, "We're here, buy alcohol." You've got to give them a reason to be here

09:13 in the first place.

09:14 Having events on, having regular music nights, folk nights. I've always fancied doing in

09:20 this particular area because we're in the Mill Dam area and we've got the Customs House

09:24 and they've got the little outside amphitheatre. I've always fancied doing a Mill Dam festival

09:29 and getting in touch with the council and collaborating with the other two pubs next

09:33 door to me and the Customs House and co-ordinating the road off and having stalls and music events

09:38 outside and all four businesses down here really collaborating together.

09:43 Bring back that thing where coach loads used to come because Shields had so much to offer

09:48 and unfortunately the pressures now have become too much and you sort of, you get, it's easy

09:54 to do but you get stuck in that false economy of, "Right, it's quiet, we're not making a

09:58 lot of money, we'll cancel bands, we'll not put this on, we'll not put that on." When

10:02 in fact you actually have to do the opposite. We're a ferries hop away from the Fish Quay

10:09 which are doing very well. They're all doing something and it's got quite a nice atmosphere

10:13 to it and I think we need to get back to that in South Shields. We need to work together.

10:18 It almost feels like we're at the very start of turning. I think people are going back

10:25 to your old fashioned pubs, your independents, they're looking for something different, they're

10:30 looking for a bit of history, they're looking for a bit of atmosphere rather than just a

10:36 cheap drink because if you give them that then they understand why they're paying more

10:41 and I think we are getting to that, almost there, that point of your old fashioned pub

10:47 is on the up, it's having a revival. It just needs to go that little bit further. People

10:53 need to invest that time in learning about real ales and different spirits and bringing

10:58 them in. It's again, it's just adding to that, bringing that different option in. It's knowing

11:02 your customers and are they going to enjoy a quiz on a Monday night when you're normally

11:08 dead. It's about getting to know your customers and providing that service which is what we're

11:13 supposed to be, the hospitality service, not just opening your doors and selling drinks.

11:20 The glory days have been there, they've rapidly declined. I think we're sort of getting, we're

11:26 nowhere near there but I think there is a turning point as long as these operators can

11:31 afford to get to that point. But it has to happen with the support of the government

11:36 and the night time industry association and stuff. All of these things have to work together

11:41 in order to get it back to where it was. Not where it was, but into its new generation

11:47 of what it is.

11:48 [Music]

11:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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