David Moore, owner of Michelin-starred Pied à Terre in Fitzrovia, said of the voucher scheme: “It’s tokenism, sure it will help a few smaller restaurants, but you can’t actually eat in most places in London on the required budget.
“Business rates need reforming, this is the perfect time for a seismic shift towards a sales tax - don’t bring back the 15% VAT on food but introduce a universal sales tax - two tiers one for bricks and mortar and a slightly higher one for web based.”
Moore called for help on rents, an extension of the furlough tapering until next March and a scrapping of newly-introduced extended congestion charge hours, which is hurting trade. Pied à Terre will reopen in September.
Jamie Barber, who runs Hush in Mayfair and the Hache and Cabana chains, welcomed the scheme. He said: “It is a clever incentive by the government to help overcome the general reticence that some people have to venture out after a long weary lockdown. It also gives us as a sector the opportunity to show our guests the extensive measures that we have taken to keep them safe and reassured.”
However he cautioned: “August will he gone in a flash, and the autumn is likely to be even more difficult as the weather changes and fears of a second wave become more prevalent.
“The government still needs to crack the rent issue with a business rates free 2021 almost a certainty. There will have been no point in trying to preserve business only for them to fail when reverting back to a broken system.”
Barber said customers were preferring to eat on outside terraces with a reticence to ear inside while local High Streets were performing better than city centre locations.
