Why are pubs and restaurants so important?

It's awful for shops and hospitality alike. I agree with GrannyGravy.It's not always about the alcohol. Our local is great. The staff are lovely. They hold a weekly quiz, have fund raising functions etc. We never see anyone drunk. This pub is a community pub rather than a boozers pub. People go in there for company. There is one chap in his 80s who said to us that if he didn't go in for his weekly pint, he'd rarely see anyone.

My young disappearing. Shame no investment was made to go online.

To answer the OP, pubs and restaurants, particularly those that attract regulars provide a welcoming community. Often they are the first point where if a regular is missing, there is concern and someone that cares. Often contributing to the wider community with charity events, family days, coffee mornings for the elderly and a place to sort getting little jobs done. Restaurants too are convivial for family events, a treat meal out, even Christmas lunch for some. Shops, you go in, buy something and leave.
I deliberately haven’t touched on the economics, others are doing that.

The only comment I would make about Top Shop and Arcadia per se, I saw Alexandra Shulman being interviewed last week I think, and she said that whilst Top Shop had been at the cutting edge of high street fashion for a younger demographic, it had been left behind because, Philip Green was somewhat of a dinosaur as far as on line sales are concerned, can't remember what she said exactly, but I think her observations were relating to web sites or lack of them, and how Philip Green's empire had been overtaken by other enterprises more savvy in the importance of a strong on line presence. I gather from talking to my husbands granddaughters, all twenty somethings, they pretty much order their stuff on line. I can understand that we have two large department stores in my nearby town, one is John Lewis very good website, the other part of the Fenwick group has an almost non existent web site, or had the last time I wanted to order something from them, exasperating imo how do they expect to weather these awful times.

Yes I agree Philip Green is the unacceptable face of capitalism. I believe I read that awful asset stripper man who bought BHS has now gone inside, hope that's true.

Blinko

In view of his demonstrably couldn't care less attitude to the plight of Arcadia staff, it could be said that Green is the unacceptable face of capitalism.

What an unpleasant creature.

You can say that again!
"Sir" Philip Green bought the Arcadia Group, paid his wife a £1.2 billion dividend, has left a £360 million hole in his employees pension fund! No more than an asset stripper.
He should be stripped of his knighthood asap.
His corporate peers recognise him as the shyster he really is.

The only High Street Store which hasn’t got an online presence is Primark, they seem to be bucking the trend and still in profit.

I agree with the original poster; far more attention is being paid to the closure of pubs, and the effect on their customers, than to the huge loss of jobs in retail. I am sorry for the people involved in pub and restaurant management but hopefully after the pandemic business will pick up again.

Phillip Green and Mike Ashley are prime movers in destroying the High Street, and Phillip Green, after plundering the pensions fund, has much of his fortune stowed safely in his wife's name.

I have seen it reported that Mr Phillip Green has as many as four luxury yachts moored in different upmarket playgrounds around the world. In that, such is his concern for all those losing their jobs that Green has not even bothered to leave his luxury Monaco living to return to Britain to assist in the attempt by the Arcadia board to save the company.

It is once again being reported that there is a three hundred and fifty million pound black hole in the company pension scheme which is on a par with what was found to be required for the BHS pension scheme when that retailer collapsed.

I think one word sums up this man and his wife, that being "B*st*rds". Very much the unacceptable face of British capitalism.

Must be terrible when you're down to your last few million !
He won't give a hang about his workers who put him where he is.
Where are all those people going to find jobs when there are ghost-towns wherever you look ? What a prospect.

Maybe we make a fuss about bars & restaurants because they are safer places to meet up and socialise? That’s why when they have to lockdown it makes the news. No gatherings in houses now and it’s too cold to sit in gardens and parks!

I think that I shouldn't have mentioned Philip Green because he's a distraction from my point about little thought being given to the shop workers. Perhaps I should have mentioned the car workers who have either lost their jobs or are about to when the manufacturers leave.

And here’s me thinking I’m doing my bit to support shops and restaurants whilst I can here in Wales and all along it’s another Let’s Bring Brexit Bitchfest Back on Board.....

grrrr Philip Green - I loved BhS and will never forgive him

Pantglas2

And here’s me thinking I’m doing my bit to support shops and restaurants whilst I can here in Wales and all along it’s another Let’s Bring Brexit Bitchfest Back on Board.....

I wouldn't call a couple of words in one post a bitchfest.

Anyone losing their job is a personal tragedy, and it must be galling for people working in an affected sector to see online discussions about who is more worthy of support.

Trying to be dispassionate, however, I think there is a difference between hospitality and retail, as hospitality provides a way for people to enjoy being together, an environment that is separate from work (or home, if that is where they spend their day) and an opportunity for people to meet possible partners. Retail, on the other hand, exists to encourage consumerism, and lockdowns have shown that many of us have become used to buying less and realising that we can manage perfectly well without so many 'things'.

If hospitality venues close, it will impact on people's lifestyles, whereas if shops close there is always somewhere else to get the goods if we need them.

Nevertheless, for individual employees in either sector, it is a dreadful time, and the fact that this is playing out on TV, and that it is happening at Christmas is doubly awful.

"there is always somewhere else to get the goods if we need them"

Yes - there's always Amazon - one of the major causes of the
closure of the high street.

Apologies to everyone for committing the unpardonable sin of putting Next into the Arcadia group. I would have grovelled earlier but I've been busy.

I don’t have any problem with a Brexit Bitchfest per se Growstuff.

However I don’t like it slipped in under the radar as sympathy for one lot of not very well paid workers against another, which in my opinion is what the OP is doing when I read the last line of her second post.

Pantglas2

I don’t have any problem with a Brexit Bitchfest per se Growstuff.

However I don’t like it slipped in under the radar as sympathy for one lot of not very well paid workers against another, which in my opinion is what the OP is doing when I read the last line of her second post.

What's Amazon got to do with Brexit?

Pantglas" you afe the only one wittering on about Brexit, nobody else is. It has been said by his peers many times that Phillip Green is nothing but an asset stripper, he failed to modernise his stores, bled them dry and now it has all come home to roost. I feel terribly sorry for the employees, as I do for those hundreds and thousands in the hospitality sector and the speciality sector such as Paddyanne was referring to. We have two lovely pubs here in the village and they are certainly not focused on selling booze; they provide rooms for clubs to meet, lunches,coffees and during the lockdown have been providing take aways. I am not sure that anyone feels more sympathy for any sector other than another, it is all dreadful.

Pantglas2 By the way I'm not pitching any groups of workers against other groups. I feel sorry for them all. I'm merely asking why the staff of pubs and restaurants are singled out for sympathy not only by the media but also by GNers it seems.

They seem to be the only businesses that the govt has on its mind. Gove even trying to pursuade people that a Scotch egg constitutes a meal.

Do Wetherspoons pubs sell Scotch eggs?

Gove even trying to pursuade people that a Scotch egg constitutes a meal

Of course it is and full of protein too. Could you eat a full one? Haha!
?

Dinahmo

"there is always somewhere else to get the goods if we need them"

Yes - there's always Amazon - one of the major causes of the
closure of the high street.

Well yes, but there are plenty of non-Amazon alternatives for those who care to seek them out.

FWIW, I don't think that the 'closure' of the High Street is necessarily a bad thing - times change, and it's how we adapt to that that matters. I feel that the space that is currently occupied by High Streets (usually in the centre of town, close to transport links) could be repurposed as community hubs when Covid is over, and provide semi-social areas for people to meet and mingle. There could be restaurants and pubs, but also learning environments of various types, sport and leisure facilities, cafes, cinemas, Arts venues and meeting places for people of all ages.

All of these would provide jobs for people who may have lost them as a result of retail moving online.

MaizieD

Apologies to everyone for committing the unpardonable sin of putting Next into the Arcadia group. I would have grovelled earlier but I've been busy.

Apology accepted

I think it belongs to Hepworths which I always thought was a gents' tailor.

How does Four Yachts Green get away with it?
His wife must be no better.
Lady Muck.