It's all in the timings

Just before Christmas, I enjoyed a very lengthy lunch at Sweetings in the City of London. It’s an institution, and I’m embarrassed to say that it was my first visit, despite working in the City for eight years in the early 1990s.?

Regardless of when I’d visited, it would no doubt have been exactly the same experience – including the food, with its old school menu. It has remained a largely unchanged restaurant since it opened its doors in 1889, while all around it in the financial district has undergone numerous revolutions. In one respect, the rest of hospitality is currently falling in line with Sweetings, with the adoption of opening hours that are precisely targeted at times of peak footfall.

It operates to strict 11.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday hours (with no reservations), and this seems to continue to suit it – and its business lunch clientele – perfectly. The pandemic and various government-induced pressures since have led all hospitality businesses to rethink their outgoings, and as labour has become a much-inflated cost, it is trading hours that have come under the microscope of late.

Previously, a property perspective of sweating the assets through long opening hours had been a primary financial focus, but this has shifted to maximising the value of the workforce through targeted opening hours. This has coincided with a post-pandemic behavioural shift in the way people frequent hospitality businesses. ?

Pretty much everything has skewed to earlier times. According to CGA, almost half (49%) of businesses have experienced a fall in post-10pm footfall whereas lunch is up 31%, afternoon 16% and earlier evening 24%. The retreat from later hours is being felt at myriad restaurants including Mildred’s, which used to enjoy a 6pm to 8pm as well as an 8pm to 10pm rush, but today, at its London high street sites, its trade is concentrated in the 7.30pm to 8.30pm slot.?

It’s a similar story in the US, with research from Toast finding that 6pm is the sweet spot for reservations, and this timing grew 6% in the third quarter of 2024. The 5pm slot is growing the fastest, with an 8% uplift to account for 14% of bookings, while 8pm is shrinking the most in popularity. An interesting phenomenon in New York City is the shift in post-work drinks from the traditional 5pm to 7pm happy hour to a 4pm “power hour”, with some of the city’s smartest bars packed at 4.30pm.?

The shift to earlier – and often shorter – drinking hours has certainly been reflected in trading at Stonegate, especially at its Slug & Lettuce brand, where peak hour used to be 9pm to 10pm on a Saturday but is now 3pm to 4pm. By 8pm, everybody starts to head home, according to chief executive David McDowall. ?

With these seismic behavioural changes taking place across the country, it has pretty much led to the death knell of traditional pub opening hours of 11am six days a week and a noon start on Sundays. Few pubs beyond JD Wetherspoon stick to these sorts of hours, and a growing number have knocked Monday opening totally on the head. A local publican to me, Martin Harley, of London Village Inns, suggested you are not a real pub if you are closed on Mondays. I’m certainly sympathetic to his viewpoint, but I’m not sure that I can agree with him any more as the dynamics in the hospitality industry have changed.

Where I’m sure we would both agree is that customers have to be fully aware of a business’ opening hours, especially if they are – annoyingly – prone to changing them seemingly on a whim. I’m sure I’m not the only person to have made the journey to a pub or casual dining venue and found it no longer open at 4pm on a Tuesday or some other off-peak time. This is especially the case with pubs that are undoubtedly still very much experimenting with their post-pandemic (and now post-Budget) opening hours.?

No sane, understanding customer would have any qualms about a hospitality business adapting its trading hours in order to ensure its long-term survival, but if this does not go hand in hand with a religious updating of opening times on its website, Google, Instagram and Facebook etc, then it will ultimately be damaging. People will find more amenable alternatives to visit, and allegiances will change.

Hospitality companies don’t have to be quite as rigid and unchanging as Sweetings with their timings, but until the sweet spot of trading hours is found, then businesses must absolutely keep their customers fully updated about their actions through all available communication channels.

?Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider?

This piece was originally published on Propel Info where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. Retail Insider would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.