Barbakan Couldn't Have Said It Better

Last week I read the open letter from Barbakan Delicatessen & Bakery to Andy Burnham, and I genuinely don’t think I could have said it better myself.

The letter spoke about the reality of running an independent business today. Rising costs, increasing pressure and the feeling that no matter how hard you work, there always seems to be another cost coming around the corner. It struck a chord because we are living it too.

We are an independent hospitality business and we are proud of that. We employ local people, invest in our properties, work with local suppliers, support local football, give to local charities, donate prizes to community events and fundraisers and support local organisations because we genuinely want the places we operate in to succeed. We don’t do those things because we have to. We do them because these are our communities too.

Just last week, two of the international town criers who came to Chester for the World Town Crier Tournament stayed with us at The Townhouse Chester, on us. Marketing Cheshire had worked hard to bring an international event into the city and we wanted to support it. There wasn’t some big commercial strategy behind the decision. It was simply a case of thinking, this is good for Chester, so what can we do to help?

And we do things like that all the time. We sponsor, we donate, we host, we employ, we train, we buy locally and we invest. We give back because that is part of being an independent business in a community.

What Barbakan’s letter captured so well is the feeling that sometimes, as an independent business, you can give and give and still feel like it isn’t enough. We are expected to absorb rising wages, increases in National Insurance, business rates, utilities, insurance, food costs, repairs, maintenance and supplier increases. At the same time, we are encouraged to keep investing, keep recruiting, keep supporting our towns and cities and keep giving something back.

The important thing is that we want to do those things. We want to sponsor the football team. We want to give to the charity fundraiser. We want to host people who are coming into our city for an event. We want to give somebody their first job in hospitality. We want to refurbish our hotels, improve our venues and invest in the next opportunity. But businesses need enough left in the pot to actually do those things.

People can look at a busy hotel, restaurant, pub or bakery and assume everything must be going brilliantly. What they don’t see is everything sitting behind every pound that comes through the till. Payroll, tax, rates, pensions, energy, insurance, food, maintenance, repairs and suppliers all have to be paid before there is anything left to reinvest and keep the business moving forward.

That is why Barbakan’s letter resonated so much. It wasn’t simply one bakery talking about its bills. It put into words something independent operators across hospitality and beyond are feeling.

We actually discussed the letter at our SAVVY Collective Hospitality Industry Conversation in Manchester last week, and you could feel how much it resonated with people in the room. So many independent operators are having the same conversation. How much more can businesses realistically absorb? At what point does another increase mean you don’t recruit that extra person, the refurbishment gets pushed back or you have to say no to the sponsorship request or charity donation you would normally have supported without thinking twice?

And at what point does somebody simply decide that running an independent business is no longer worth the risk?

That is the bigger conversation we should be having.

Independent businesses contribute far more to their communities than the number on their tax return. We create jobs, support suppliers, use local tradespeople, sponsor teams, support charities, bring visitors into our towns and cities, invest in buildings and create places for people to meet, eat, drink, stay and work.

We are proud to do all of that and we want to keep doing it. But Barbakan couldn’t have said it better. Independent businesses don’t want handouts. We just need enough breathing room to keep doing what we do best: running good businesses, employing good people and putting something back into the communities that support us.