Fridays owner posts festive sales boost despite cost-of-living crisis
Hostmore had a ‘really pleasing’ December improving its overall revenue for the latter half of 2023.
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Your support makes all the difference.Christmas bookings jumped at restaurant chain Fridays as families shrugged off pressure from the cost-of-living crisis.
Hostmore, the parent group of the chain, said it saw “an improvement” in trading over the latter half of 2023 after pushing forward with a turnaround plan.
Chief executive officer of Hostmore, Julie McEwan, said the company was “mindful” of the effect that the cost-of-living crisis had on its customers.
Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “We were mindful that the cost of living crisis affected quite a lot of families over time, so we wanted to go back to our roots and understand who we were and our core market.
What we are doing is we're utilising our brand equity and also our heritage of TGI Fridays, so what worked really well and taking the best of both, looking at the consumer of the future and how we can attract more footfall in as well
“We looked at our booking strategy and also looked at what our competitors were doing, we made it as frictionless as possible, but also with a smaller deposit.
“A lot of competitors were saying if you want to come and dine with us, and you’ve got a party of 12, for example, it was £10 per head.
“We took that deposit right down which meant that our deposits went up and our core market – our families – could afford to actually come and book with us, and they did.”
A “really pleasing” December 2023 boosted Hostmore’s overall revenue for the latter half of 2023, with like-for-like revenue of 4% compared to December 2022.
Hostmore said that they found the outcome “particularly encouraging” considering that the majority of their properties are situated in retail parks and shopping centres.
It manages 91 locations and employs about 4,500 people across its restaurants, which recently underwent a rebranding from TGI Fridays.
It is expected that the company will generate £5.4 million of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) by the latter half of 2023.
Ms McEwan said: “We have continued making good progress in executing our turnaround strategy, through disciplined capital allocation and the delivery of further cost reductions.
“Our organic growth initiatives, implemented through a strong and motivated operational platform, have improved the financial outlook of the business and continue into 2024.”
Hostmore has also said that it is committed to achieving its goal of becoming debt-free by diverting all its free cash flow towards paying off its borrowings.
As a result, its net bank debt at the end of the year was £25.1 million, an improvement compared to the figure of £31.3 million recorded on July 2 2023.
“We’ve got really motivated teams and a lot of the ideas that we use come from the experience within the brands,” she added.
“Also, what we are doing is we’re utilising our brand equity and also our heritage of TGI Fridays, so what worked really well and taking the best of both, looking at the consumer of the future and how we can attract more footfall in as well.”