Leeds bars: Christmas market and rising costs making 2023 festive season another struggle for city’s venues

The festive season is typically the most fruitful for the bars and clubs that give the city its great reputation as a fantastic place to socialise; as an abundance of work parties and festive merriment help build up the banks before Dry January.

However Covid, the cost of living crisis and train strikes have heaped misery on the city’s hospitality sector in the last three years, meaning venues were hoping for a return to normality over Christmas 2023.

But bars in Leeds have said that the season is not looking as rosy as they hoped; with the return of the Christmas market after four years away contributing to their ills.

Rosita Rogers, who owns Distrikt Bar on Duncan Street, was one to highlight the issues with the Christmas market, saying that because it was so expensive people are “less inclined to go out after.”

She added that the venues around the city centre were facing similar problems saying: “Everyone is asking the same question – why is it not busy?

"We used to get anxious in the lead up to Christmas with how busy it would get but we don’t anymore.”

She said that there was an “amazing” boom after the Covid restrictions were lifted but that since then the rising prices and various struggles had deterred people from going out.

Tom Bailey, who owns Lazy Lounge and Leeds Postal Service at West Point, also flagged the issues with the Christmas market, saying: “There’s more pop up bars than previously and they’re spread out over the city centre so it’s impacted more people.”

He also said that there has been a downturn in the number of Christmas parties being booked, but also the number of people turning up to those that are scheduled.

"It’s a running theme”, he said. “We had a party of 150 on Tuesday and only 60 people turned up.

"We are seeing that the bookings numbers still aren’t anywhere near what they used to be and the ones we’ve got are not the numbers we were expecting.”

He added that he the bars also used to make money at Christmas time from vouchers for meals or drink tasting sessions but that this had also been at a far lower rate due to peoples’ lack of funds.

He said: “Costs keep going up but people don’t have the funds. It’s a terrible catch 22.

"This Christmas is turning into another wet fart sadly, which every one since Covid has been.”

One thing that most in the hospitality sector agree should be assessed is the 20% they pay of VAT on food and drink is extortionate, with many such as Mr Bailey calling on the Government for lower rates seen across Europe.

While concerns about the affects of homeworking, train strikes and roadworks in the centre were raised, bars at West Point have also had to contend with a set of scaffolding being erected outside their bars which has caused a detriment to business this year.

Among those affected has been Toast, whose general manager Jacob Georgallis said that things had actually picked up since the sun went in and people were more inclined to stay indoors.

He said: “We are still down on last year but we are hoping to see things creep up with the Christmas bookings. But there’s a hell of a lot of catching up to do.”

Comparatively there was little trepidation from the bars in the business-heavy end of the city, with spots in Wellington Place all giving an indication that their clientele were happy to spend the money.

Glen Cooper went as far as to say that the two bars he co-owns – Sociable Folk and The Good Luck Club – were doing “better than ever” as more and more developments have gone up and the footfall in the area has grown.

Mr Cooper, who opened the two sites before the rapid boom in development, said: “The wider issues are not affecting us like they are places in the city centre because the population has grown so much and there’s now a lot of wealthy people working down here. We are lucky in that sense.

"I think because people are working from home a lot more it means they’re more inclined to go out for a drink when they’ve finished in the office. People are well and truly past Covid now.

"It’s not what I expected. I thought that we’d be staring down a barrel.”

Louis Hood, general manager at Hoist, said he was looking forward to the bar’s first proper Christmas season after train strikes “obliterated” trade last year and led to a good number of parties being cancelled.

He said: “We’ve done really well through the year but costs keep going up so you can’t get too comfortable. We will look at the bigger picture come January.”