Something unexpected is happening in British pubs.
Buy a pint in Our Gracie’s, Rochdale, and that’s just what you’ll get – no live band, no televised football match, no food – except, perhaps, a pork pie.
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Sandwiched between a Wetherspoon’s and a Hogarths, the independent, wet-led boozer is exactly the kind of pub many landlords and industry experts said would not survive a “death by a thousand cuts” being wrought upon the industry when they spoke to Sky News a year ago.
But figures suggest Our Gracie’s, which opened in December 2023 for just three days a week and now operates on all seven, may be a sign of the industry staging something of a comeback.
Fewer, better pubs
“Pubs always adapt. They always manage to work out a way to survive,” says Katie Gallagher, hospitality expert at consumer data firm Lumina Intelligence.
“What you’ve seen is less pubs, but not necessarily less market value, because the pubs that are left are notably better.”
The market, which was worth £23bn before the pandemic, lost 61% of its value in 2020, and took three more years to return to 2019 levels, according to Lumina Intelligence.
Thousands of closures ensued, exacerbated by the ever-inflating cost of ingredients and energy, customers with less cash to spend, supermarkets offering cheap booze and, as revenues stuttered, landlords intent on selling up for a quick buck in real estate.
“Last orders for the British pub” was a headline filling phone screens, as more than 4,000 closed their doors between 2019 and 2024.
But now industry turnover is forecast to hit 2% growth next year for the first time since the pandemic and sustain it until 2028, outpacing growth in the three years before COVID-19 hit.
Average weekly sales revenue today is 15% higher than pre-pandemic levels, and closures are forecast to slow, with a decline of 214 pubs expected between 2025 and 2027.
Who survived?
“Taking it back to what a pub used to…
