When small is more beautiful

Following on from my week in hospital with an infected thumb and my rant at hospital food, although not altogether negative, I received an email from a North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust governor, explaining that, on top of the dishes on offer, patients can also pre-order food from the café and restaurant. Mr. Campbell also indicated that the Trust would welcome new members. Once again, I must emphasise that I was very impressed by the logistics behind catering for thousands of patients from morning to night and greatly commend the people behind the operation.
The huge dressing on   my thumb hasn’t put an end to  my typing although I have been using my index finger for the space key.         

Anyone involved in catering in one way or another won’t have failed to notice that, in the last twelve months, many restaurant chains, Byron, Jamie Oliver’s and Frankie and Benny’s have closed several of their unprofitable outlets to try and restructure their operations. 

Most entrepreneurs and chains cannot fight off the urge to grow and consolidate their businesses. Some do it out of ambition to expand and become leaders in their markets. Others do it as a necessary need to enhance profits by having a number of units, each contributing a share to the bottom line.

Not illogically, expansion always seems to follow and is made possible by the state of the financial market. Cheap bank loans being often impossible to resist, chains fall into an unending growth cycle.  

However, notwithstanding the reason for expansion, if offer outstrips demand and, due to various factors such as online shopping, the High Street no longer delivers the expected profits, chains often find themselves in the red, paying exorbitant rents and financing lossmaking units with profits from elsewhere.

Whereas other towns have been swamped by restaurant chains, Hartlepool has always resisted the appeal for these. In our first year in business, back in 1985, a branch of the Perfect Pizza chain opened in York Road. Being a tiny, 9-table restaurant in Seaton Carew, I honestly began worrying about our survival. I imagined a sudden influx of American restaurants leading to the closure of the few independent ones in town. However, the pizza restaurant did not last very long. I breathed a sigh of relief.

For a few years, another chain, Frankie and Benny’s toyed with the idea of opening a unit in Hartlepool. When Burger King closed its doors in the middle of Anchor Retail Park, the Italian-American chain replaced it. However, the new restaurant closed down along with 33 other units, after less than a year. Although job losses are always painful for the community, for whatever reason, Hartlepool still remains the place for independents to succeed and survive.

Despite their limited access to research tools, training programs, and corporate muscle, independent restaurants will always have the edge on chains which often overlook the human factor. Smaller operators understand price sensitivity and local tastes. To ensure their survival, they constantly listen first hand to their customers, are quick to tweak their operations accordingly and keep reinventing themselves regularly.