Rail strikes: ‘What happened to we’re all in this together?’

A bloodbath. Brutal. Like Christmas Eve. Those were some of the more choice words used to describe the impact of Tuesday’s trade on day one of the RMT strike, courtesy of Hop Vietnamese founder Paul Hopper.

Operators told MCA they were anything from 30% down to 65% down, as the rail network ground to a halt, the first of three strike days from the transport union.

Inevitably, it was the city centre-based venues which were worst affected, as office workers avoided the tube and trains and reverted to work from home.

D&D London’s City restaurants were down 50% on average yesterday, chairman and CEO Des Gunewardena told MCA.

The West End was down 25%, with social businesses holding up better than corporate.

“Manchester, Leeds and Bristol saw much less impact, they were down 10%,” Gunewardena added. “Not so far to travel, so driving, taxis and walking is more practical. Residential areas of course saw no impact.”

For pub operator McMullen, which has a collection of London pubs, the drop-off was marked.

“Central London houses were down over 50% versus Tuesday last week and on a like-for-like basis (we have recently added a couple of pubs) they were down just over 30% versus same day in 2021 and were down just under 40% versus 2019,” Tom McMullen, co-MD told MCA.

“In total our comparable estate was down c7% v last week but in growth versus 21 and 19 -aided by the weather. Of course in real terms the story is much less rosy.”

McMullen expects the disruption to continue into the week, as the weather turns, but also as tourists stay away to avoid the disruption.

Others such as Tortilla decided to close up shop altogether in their central London sites, while the rest “weren’t too bad”, according to CEO Richard Morris.

Danish bakery group Ole & Steen said the strikes “significantly impacted sales”.

“This was particularly evident in our Central London store bakeries with sales being over 30% down versus the previous week,” Lee Nixon, MD told MCA.

“The impact was far less severe in London Neighbourhoods, although they were still 5% down week on week. Sales in regional locations remained strong with no evidence of a drop in sales or guests.

“Although Tubes will be running on 23rd and 25th I would expect a similar impact as people will not attempt to travel.”

Red Engine CFO Ross Shepley-Smith said the groups Flight Club venues had been significantly impacted. 

“Not only has this impacted the profitability of the business our main concern is our staff who are being affected. The reduction in customer demand this week has naturally impacted rotas and shift availability, it is incredibly frustrating to see this knock on effect for our dedicated teams.”

Nisha Katona, founder of Mowgli Street Food, echoed Shepley-Smith’s concerns about the impact on central venues and staff.

”The Mowgli sites that were most affected by the rail strikes was our central London site and the Grand Central Birmingham Mowgli, which is situated within the rail station,” she said.

”The tube strikes in london caused the most disruption with many of our staff travelling up to 3 hours to get to and from work. The regions and the rest of the estate continued to trade well.”

Not all were badly impacted. Stonegate Group said customers continued to come out.

“Whilst the rail strikes this week have had a small impact on city centre sites, our overall trading across the estate is in line with the trend of recent weeks, which suggests that people are simply enjoying the warm weather more locally,” CEO Simon Longbottom said.

“Clearly we would hope that the current dispute in the rail sector is resolved speedily to avoid further industrial action, given that long-running periods of travel disruption cannot be good news for our sector or the economy in general.”

 

Others were less diplomatic in their language. “It was a bloodbath. It was like Christmas Eve. It is brutal for us, being in the City,” Paul Hopper, founder, Hop Vietnamese told MCA.

“Monday felt relatively normal for us. In one of our stores sales were 25% of normal and the other was close to 50% so on average I would say we were 65% down. It will be the same thing tomorrow. There is no point just moaning about it. I already got angry before when they announced it, but there is literally nothing you can do about it.”

Meanwhile Stephen Finch, founder and CEO of Vagabond Wines, singled out the striking rail workers for strong disapproval, accusing them of damaging the economy at a particular fragile time.

“We’re all trying to dig ourselves out from two years of pandemic shutdowns, and the RMT decide now is the time to inflict all this pain on everyone? Honestly, WTF. What happened to ‘we’re all in this together’?

“And it really tells you something the way they schedule their strikes on alternating days — to maximise the adverse impact on the public.

“They’re literally trying to create as much pain for the public as possible in hopes of creating pressure on the government/employers to give in. I don’t want to be a pawn of the RMT’s cynical designs to jack up their salaries and enhance their job security when the rest of us are simply trying our hardest to get by.

“Our week-to-date sales are down 40%. 100% of this is due to RMT and tube strikes.

“And let’s not forget about staff. I’ve had someone walk 1 hour and 45 minutes from East Dulwich to get to work yesterday. Thankfully the weather was good. Why should they need to do that just to earn an income?

“Fire and replace all the strikers, is what I say. It worked for Reagan and the air traffic controllers.”