Leeds bars rejoice over luxury of outdoor spaces for April opening - but these 'won't save' hospitality

The owners of bars in Leeds with outdoor seating have expressed their rejoice over having the areas in preparation for an April reopening, but have said that this will not bring hospitality activity back to pre-pandemic levels.
Chow Down, Temple Arches, LeedsChow Down, Temple Arches, Leeds
Chow Down, Temple Arches, Leeds

Director Stu Butterworth opened Chow Down in Leeds city centre at the end of July last year as a venue 'designed around Covid'.

The purpose built outdoor drinking and socialising space attracted over 30,000 people during the summer, and it will now be allowed to reopen on April 12 as part of Boris Johnson's roadmap to bring England out of lockdown.

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Stu said that the news announced by the Prime Minister today is great news for venues such as his at Temple Arches, but possibly not for others who don't have as much of an outdoor luxury.

Brudenell Social Club, Burley, LeedsBrudenell Social Club, Burley, Leeds
Brudenell Social Club, Burley, Leeds

He added: "Broadly speaking, it's positive that there is a roadmap of the way out of this.

"We're fortunate as we designed our venue around Covid and it was set up as a purpose built outdoor space, but other venues don't have that luxury.

"It really is great for us though and although it is still condition dependent that we can open in April, we can start to look forward to opening.

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"We have a lot of covered areas and we designed the space to cover for the pandemic restrictions and the weather.

"However, more needs to be done to support the majority of venues in the wider industry with no or limited outdoor spaces because it's going to be really hard to last until May for them.

"They will find it really tough and some just won't reopen if it's not worth it, for example it's going to be really difficult to work with these rules in a small beer garden space."

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Nathan Clark is the director and owner of Brudenell Social Club, and he says that being able to open in April 'offers green shoots of hope' for hospitality, but will not bring back pre-pandemic activity levels.

The venue in Burley is often the home to live music events, and sports a large outdoor seating space.

Nathan said: "What Boris Johnson has said is a 'not before' date, not an actual date.

"Looking from an events point of view we can't have live music which we gather a lot of our business around until May, and still with limited capacity and social distancing.

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"Is this economically viable? Does opening purely outdoors work with health and safety constraints?

"It's good to get some clarity following a year of confusion but this doesn't mean it's financially viable to open just outdoors, and it doesn't mean it's right in the eyes of public perception.

"I'm really positive about today's statement, and it does offer green shoots of hope for live music and hospitality but we've a long way to go to return to pre-pandemic activity levels and this won't save hospitality."

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Nathan also expressed his concern about serving outside only, having seen snow in Leeds in April only a few years ago.

He added: "We have to think about the weather and staff conditions because we would never normally just open with an outdoor area.

"How do you police it?

"It's merely one building block that we will take as a cautious approach of protecting the lives of our customers and staff.

"We want to do it when it's right and possible, not just when we are told to.

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"We really hope that economic support will be twinned with the opening date which gives us the option not to open if economically viable as hospitality cannot be treated in the same way as many other businesses and we have to have a careful balance of output of staff, cost of opening and risk.

"I appreciate the hope for hospitality, music and arts but we need levels of support until we reach a point where we can all return properly.

"We realise we are lucky to have a large outdoor space and we have the flexibility to do what other's can't, but we still need option of sector specific support for all of hospitality."

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