Sun shines on August sales figures for pub groups
Glorious summer weather has seen pubs outperform restaurants according to figures from some of the UK's largest casual-dining chains.
Like-for-like sales across managed pubs and restaurant groups were up 0.6% in August, following on from 0.3% growth in July, according to the Coffer Peach Business Tracker.
According to the analysis of sales at 34 firms, including Mitchells and Butlers, Whitbread, Pizza Express, Casual Dining Group and Byron, pubs were the main beneficiaries, with like-for-like sales up 1.2% compared to a 0.4% decline in casual-dining sales.
London fared best, with operators seeing a 2.9% uplift on August 2015, while those outside the M25 saw sales slide 0.1%.
CHA Peach vice president Peter Martin said that drinks-led business did best of all, driven by the hot weather.
"The reassuring thing is that overall business was marginally up on last year at a time when consumer confidence was expected to be fragile in the wake of the referendum," he added.
"Tourism will have helped the capital and the market will remain cautious as we move into the pre-Christmas period."
Thanks to new site openings, total sales for August were up 4.2% for the 34 firms.
Meanwhile, the underlying annual sales trend for the 12 months to September 2016 is running 0.8% up.
Trevor Watson, executive director, valuations, at Davis Coffer Lyons, said: "Over the last three months, the rate of growth between the pub sector and the restaurant sector has been broadly similar, unlike the last four years when restaurant growth has been significantly faster. This is further evidence of the slowdown in growth in the restaurant sector as the number of new openings reduces and sector moves into a period of more modest growth."
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