‘We can’t increase prices any more’: UK hospitality firms hit by cost triple blow

Struggling pubs reel from rising business rates, wages and energy bills, with customers at limit of what they will pay Nick Evans is staring in vain at columns of numbers, trying to make them add up to a profit. He is a co-owner of the Old Crown Coaching Inn in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, a pub and hotel whose rich history is etched into its crooked wooden beams and cosy snugs. Oliver Cromwell stayed here in 1645. A room believed to have been used by the notoriously severe “hanging judge” Lord Jeffreys to condemn rebels now stages happier encounters: it is the honeymoon suite. As a former City trader, Evans is no stranger to profit. But this is hospitality, a sector that has known nothing but sucker punches since the onset of Covid-19. The latest bruising blow to the industry is a triple whammy. The Old Crown is one of thousands of hospitality businesses grappling with a punishing increase in costs courtesy of a rise in the minimum wage and to business rates, which kicked in from the start of April. On top of that comes the Iran crisis and the resulting surge in energy prices – oil and gas are still well above prewar levels despite the drop after the overnight announcement of a t