Every Thursday, our Money blog team interviews chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks and more. This week, we chat to award-winning TV chef Andi Oliver. It's very hard to make money in hospitality... People think you are making out like a bandit if you have got a busy restaurant five or six days a week, but just turning the lights on costs a fortune, your business rates cost a fortune, your VAT costs a fortune, everything costs a lot of money. Good ingredients cost a lot of money. It's also expensive emotionally and physically to deliver really great food. You can't take your eye off the ball for a second because the standard can drop really easily.
We have had 14, 15 years of quite destructive governmental rule... We are in a bit of a catch-22 situation. It's got harder for a lot of people but I also think the national living wage has to go up. Getting this country sorted out is going to take some doing.
Read all the latest Money news here. If you go to a restaurant and you have to wait an extra five minutes for your meal, just be patient... Have a drink and don't have a big fit about it. People are doing their absolute best. There's a reason there are so many pizza restaurants around... You have to simplify your menu to reduce the financial difficulty. You have to pay people properly and you have to be responsible as an employer. But I think that the best thing to do is deliver something simple and deliver it well and you'll be able to keep your costs down.
