Leisure Market Predictions 2014
January 20, 2014
The team at Davis Coffer Lyons – the UKs leading leisure constancy – gives their predictions for the leisure market in the year to come.
INDUSTRY PREDICTIONS
Increasing food and beverage to retail ratio in town centre developments as landlords look to exploit the virtues of having a cutting edge dining offer within their schemes.
Proliferation of established pitches, which will lead to a wider range of innovative food and beverage locations – moving away from traditional prime locations.
Continued morphing of bars, restaurants and coffee shops within the same venue.
Banking will improve and there will be more positive support for new openings and expansions as well as corporate acquisitions – this improvement may, however, be slow.
Dynamic growth of suburban locations as bars and restaurants follow the residential boom as it spreads to previously underrated and under-served London suburbs.
High rental bids from overseas tenants will put pressure on existing businesss outgoings leading to heavy casualties from UK leisure companies in the core Central London market.
Leisure rents will continue to outperform prime office rentals in Central London.
Investment yields for leisure property will drop further.
Increasing number of leisure funds will manifest themselves.
Rise in M&A activity in the casual dining sector.
More development outside London – particularly in affluent towns.
RESTAURANT PREDICTIONS
Growth of hybrid concepts that blur the boundaries in terms of traditional planning use classes – combining retail with grazing/limited dining and drinking.
New wave of boutique wine bars in London, which provide a limited food offer and focus on specialist producers, attracting an audience with a genuine interest in wine.
An increasing requirement for restaurants to describe the source of ingredients and nutritional content of their menus – especially in terms of sugar and fat content.
Rise in the number of vegetable juice bars, which may in turn impact traditional fruit juice bars – possibly as part of campaign against sugar in take.
An increase in the number of in-store catering concessions.
More medium term pop ups i.e. anything up to three years.
More Greek restaurants – many of which will combine an eatery with a deli element.
Continued importance of street food and markets which have the power to pull large audiences to off pitch locations as well as to enliven areas and provide a worthwhile amenity – particularly areas with a high population of office workers.
Changes in funding for entrepreneurial food businesses, harnessing social media for crowdfunding.
Fatalities in the steak sector as operator numbers reach overkill levels.
