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