The Walkabout, Jongleurs and Old Orleans bar and restaurant company seems to be breathing its last. Stories are coming out of Brookes Leisure, a very highly regarded nightclub and hotel operator, and more than one venture capitalist taking a long look at Regent.
The high street is for sure at the end of a cycle, and Walkabout is a very highly geared business; if they aren’t taking big bucks they are not making money. And with the purchase of Old Orleans, what many industry commentators regarded as an ego purchase of a shot brand, it would seem that there is no hope of, no funds for, a re-furbishment / re-branding operation to breathe new life into the existing estate.
Jongleurs will be the fly in the ointment for any new investor, the deal with the comedy club operation in regard to business partners is complex. But there are some prime sites within the Regent estate and we will surely soon see the vultures picking over the wreckage.
Expect some Walkabouts to be boarded up in the near future and the estate to be treated to a mixture of cherry picking and dumping properties back with landlords. Sad days.
Tips?
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008Pizza Hut and TGI Friday’s have agreed to give staff 100% of the tips that they make, following the launch of a new fair tips campaign. Unite, the trade union, is calling on restaurants and hotels to sign up to the fair tips charter, by ensuring that tips and service charges are distributed fairly among their employees.
It’s news to me that there is, or ever has been, any other system than giving employees all of their tips. What’s been happening to the rest?
I do think that people have a right to expect to hang onto tips, but the whole tipping culture has me a bit flummoxed and offended on occasion. I once read a quote by some sanctimonious tit along the lines of ‘this will always be a low paid industry until we learn to tip properly in this country’.
That whole notion is so wrong in my mind. Are we really supposed to believe that we must pay for the product, whatever that may be, and then make a contribution towards the staff wages? I very, very rarely tip in this country and will not patronise any place that imposes a service charge.
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