Prior to covid, the restaurant sector was undergoing a Great Shakedown and significant realignment. It was being callenged by changing customer needs, limited brand differentiation and over-capacity, as well as rising costs, and cost imbalances involved in food, labour, fuel and property. This gave rise to uncertainty.

 

Covid changed much of the restaurant sector – it destroyed some businesses, it gave rise to new income streams, it changed ways of thinking and working, it changed relationships. The history of previous downturns from the early 1980s shows that the successful operating and investment paradigms undergo shifts in each upturn – from the franchising model of the 1980s to the private-equity driven model since the post-Lehmann Great Recession. Operators, investors and suppliers needed clarity.

 

The questions that are now being asked are:

 

• What can I do now?

• When should I be thinking of further involvement?

• What should my investment look like?

 

Future Restaurant was launched in 2019 to provide insight for operators and investors over where to place their bets over the next planning cycle.