Armageddon April: London hospitality braces for a perfect storm

Businesses are already struggling — but Tube strikes and the Iran war could tip many over the edge.

- By Jonathan Prynn and David Ellis

The Standard has long been a tireless advocate for London’s magnificent, world-class, but increasingly embattled hospitality sector. Its restaurants, bars and pubs, which employ more than 250,000 people across the capital, are rightly lauded and form a huge part of the city’s global appeal.

But the industry is undoubtedly struggling. Not to fill its bars and dining rooms — anyone who has tried to get served in a City pub on a Thursday evening or secure a Saturday night table at a hot West End restaurant knows just how incredibly popular the best places still are. But what we consistently hear from despairing operators is how hard, often impossible, it has become to convert that revenue into the lifeblood of profit. That is why the Standard launched its Save Our Hospitality campaign at the start of what is shaping up to be another testing and gruelling year.

Ever since the pandemic it has been a slog, with extra layers of costs seemingly loaded on every year and margins squeezed just a little bit further. And 2026 is going to be no different.

As we approach the end of March, restaurateurs and publicans are bracing themselves for yet another bruising round of cost increases coming down the road in April.

These include the new business rates and the increased minimum wage. On top of that it now seems inevitable that the Iran crisis will rapidly feed through to higher energy bills for a sector notoriously heavy on electricity and gas to cool and heat its food. And the cap that will shield consumers from the impact of the Middle East war through to July does not apply to businesses.

On top of that the threat of 12 days of Tube strikes through the spring and early summer is hanging over the industry. Although the first wave of stoppages scheduled for next week has been called off, other strike days in April, May and June are still in the RMT's diary.