Lydia Papaphilippopoulos-Snape - Why the Maths Isn't Mathing: The Silent Crisis in UK Hospitality

Lydia Papafilippopoulos-Snape is an entrepreneur and vocal advocate for the hospitality industry. 

Lydia, the founder of Warwick Street Kitchen and Saint Kitchen, shares her journey from a musician to a successful café owner with four locations across the Midlands. 

We dive into her passion for hospitality, the challenges of running a small business in today’s economic climate, and the struggles of navigating rising costs, VAT, and staffing issues. Lydia passionately discusses the impact of government policies on the hospitality sector, especially regarding the cost of doing business and the burden of VAT. 

She also highlights the importance of customer experience, offering advice for businesses looking to thrive in a competitive market. Tune in for an insightful conversation on the current state of the hospitality industry and Lydia’s mission to advocate for independent businesses. 

Website: https://www.warwickstreetkitchen.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpapznape/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydia-coffee/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@lpapznape

www.dm-mi.com

Transcript

sukh hayre   0:03
 Welcome to the DM-Mi Podcast
Lydia   0:05
 Hello, thank you so much for having me.
sukh hayre   0:07
 No, really appreciate you coming on board and giving up some of your time. Thankfully, I can just pronounce the Snape part and not the second part of your hyphenated surname, which I think hopefully you'll do me the other of pronouncing for me.
Lydia   0:15
 Haha.
 Sure, so my name is Lydia Papafilippopoulos Snape. My dad's Greek and I just loved the name so much that I swore I'd never change it. And then I married a guy whose surname is Snape and I'm a massive Harry Potter fan. So I was like, well, I'm just going to have to throw these two together now, aren't I? And so now I just have the most ridiculous name in existence.
sukh hayre   0:42
 It's not really good at all. But my only Greek words I know are the swear words I learnt for my Greek mates at school.
Lydia   0:47
 I know exactly what you know, mate. Don't you worry. Let's say no more.
sukh hayre   0:51
 Right, well, we'll try to keep it as clean as possible, but having listened to your TikTok, I'm not sure that will that will come to fruit. OK, so for that for our listeners who may not know your story, how did you end up? Because, to introduce you first, obviously, you're the entrepreneur and owner of a number of food establishments within the Midlands, West Whelan.
 Kitchens, isn't it?
Lydia   1:14
 Yes, I've got 4 cafes across the Midlands. Two of them are in Warwickshire. So we've got Warwick Street Kitchen in Leamington. We opened that in 2017. Warwick Street Kitchen Bakery in Warwick, which also functions as a wholesale bakery and services all of our sites. And then I've got two Saint Kitchens in Birmingham. So there's the one in the jewellery quarter and then one that just opened in Stirchley just before Christmas, just last year.
 That.
sukh hayre   1:40
 Awesome. So I think I just said before, before we started to hit record that the Thanks Kitchen in the jewellery court is probably my favourite eatery. So I would highly recommend all our listeners in the Birmingham area, cheque that out, but obviously Stirchley and the Warri ones as well. So what?
Lydia   1:54
 Seamless plug, but thank you.
sukh hayre   1:56
 It's okay, the check's in the post. So what really attracted you into kind of retail and hospitality as a sector?
Lydia   1:59
 Yeah.
 Well, it's an interesting one. It's more, I'll try not to go into like a massive history of my past, but I was a musician through quite my teenage years and early 20s. And that didn't make me any money, surprise, surprise. So I ended up falling into this shift work. And this is a story that's very familiar to a lot of people in hospitality.
 that you can pick up shift work and you can pay your bills doing this thing. So I mean, I got a job early. I got my first part time job when I was like 13. And it was obviously in hospitality, waitressing in a pub. And it's something that I've just always done historically. And then when that music career didn't happen for me, you know, or it fell apart, let's say in my early 20s,
 I was like, right, well, I better go get a grown up job. I had a stint in like a corporate job, which I hated. I decorated and made cakes for people, you know, like a self-employed thing. And I just found myself, because I'd always held down like a part time job in hospitality, I found myself really looking forward to those days over anything else. Like I just loved the teamwork aspect. I loved the hustle of busy service.
 I really enjoyed being proud of the product. So I was like, well, there was just this real moment where I was like, I'm built for this. Like I understand this industry and I can do it well. No one's ever really had to kind of explain the flow of it to me. So I ended up working full time, but just from a place of love. That's what it is. When you say what attracted me, it was pure love and passion.
 And then eventually after sort of working my way up through working for another Andy operator and becoming like ops manager for their business, I was like, well, I'm going to do this for myself. I always had an itch to do it for myself. And that was it. 2017 opened my own business.
sukh hayre   3:47
 Fantastic. So obviously there's a passion to it. What are the secrets to a good hospitality business?
Lydia   3:55
 I think that this has changed, if I'm honest, because I think these days people are caring more and more about where they spend their money. So I think that the secret is about sticking to your guns, because I think that people can smell when you're being false a mile off. If you're trying to be something that you are not, if you are
sukh hayre   3:58
 Okay.
Lydia   4:16
 Trying to please everybody. You know, when you go in somewhere and they've got a massive menu because somebody said, oh, have you got soup? And they panicked and they put soup on the menu. And someone said, oh, have you got this on the menu? And they panicked and they put it on the menu. And it's knowing like, this is what I do. This is my jam. This is my vibe and sticking to it because that kind of authenticity
 is what's going to keep people coming back. And the secret to something really, really special is having that passion because that is going to come through to your customer.
sukh hayre   4:48
 So, what's your ethos behind kind of the food that you do serve, or the service that you do lay on at your establishments? Is there a common theme amongst us, like when we say this is what we do, what is this?
Lydia   4:56
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Okay, well top line, we're going to come across our first swear word because I say this all the time. The top line is make good **** and be nice to people. Like that is, it's as simple as that. Whatever we do, whatever, because we have tried different things, different variations. We have for mainly for like profit and financial reasons over the past years, we've had to reassess some things that we do.
 But no matter what it comes down to, these ultimate values, that the quality has to be really, really good. We're not going to waver on that. We're not going to start buying in cheap products. And we have to be nice to people because as far as I'm concerned, and I've experienced this so much, it doesn't matter how good the food and drink is. If you've had a horrible time, you ain't going back.
 and you are not recommending it to people. But in a broader sense, what do we do? We do brunch, we do speciality coffee, we do pastry, we do bread. We are what I would describe as a high end cafe. Like it's a cafe, cafe hours, cafe menu, but it's really good if I can say that myself.
sukh hayre   6:04
 I will vouch for that. It is very good. And I've been around the country looking for similar establishments. I honestly tell you that you guys were some of the best I've seen. Well, probably the best, actually, because I've always tried to replicate that as someone else. I've never quite managed to do it. OK, cool. So from
Lydia   6:14
 Oh, yay!
sukh hayre   6:23
 I think from a hospitality perspective, I think you're right. I've had a little bit of dabbled in pubs and hospitality myself, worked for kind of Michelin, but for best part of the year. So I can understand the business from a large corporate perspective, but also from a from a founder's perspective and been an individual operator. And I think the hospitality bit is the one that gets
 forgotten about or the one that gets neglected because everyone's looking at the till and looking at the pennies and the pounds without feeling it's the things that you can't measure in terms of whether people come back and having your staff be polite, have a smile and not walk around with a sad face on, which obviously
 You can't always help, right, because everybody has bad days, but they're the establishments that you remember. Even if the food quality might not be the best in the world, if people make you feel special, you're going to go back. We're all humans at the end of the day, and that's a bit that we most people forget how many businesses forget. So I think you're spot on there and probably speaks to your success.
 But I just want you to go back to your history. So I think you started in 2017 and having come across some of your TikToks, I think you have become a little bit disillusioned with the way the industry is treating you right now. So what changed ever since from when you started to kind of how the business environment is for
 hospitality businesses like yours today.
Lydia   7:45
 I don't think it's the industry treating us badly. I think it's the government and its policy makers. What has changed, I mean, there's a whole number of things. We could talk about the pandemic, we could talk about Brexit, we could talk about cost of living crisis, but ultimately what has changed is the cost of doing business.
 So, and by that I mean there are many levers in our business. There are things that we absolutely cannot change. We have no control over things like rent, business rates, the cost of goods to some extent, especially if like us, you're saying we're not going to buy cheaper stuff. Your electricity, your, I mean, we can, this goes on forever, right? There's all these levers that we cannot move and we cannot control. VAT, tax, national insurance, PAYE,
 pensions, these are policies, these are, this is law or these are things that you've signed on the dotted line. All of these elements, especially in the last two budgets, in the last two years, have gone up hugely. And this is where you're saying, I've seen some of your videos on TikTok and Instagram and stuff because I just started speaking about this.
 really audibly because we are in an industry where we cannot just keep passing this cost on to the customer. They'll just stop coming in. So that's what's changed for in 2017 when it was, I'm going to say relatively easy for a good operator for people who knew what they were doing, it was relatively easy to make a profit.
 And now we are trying to survive in an industry and a climate where it is getting increasingly harder to work at a profit. I know a lot of people that are celebrating breaking even and a lot of people running at a loss, which is why we're seeing a lot of places closing down, like more and more and more every day seeing places close down.
 So the greatest difference is the cost of doing business has increased exponentially beyond the point where we can just pass it on to the customer.
sukh hayre   9:40
 So what was kind of your breaking point where you said, right, I'm going to say something, you've got to start. What kind of, what was the trigger that you just said, actually, no, I have to.
Lydia   9:44
 Hmm.
 Well, I'm going to take you back to, it was October 2024 when I first started reading about the budget changes that the government were proposing for that April 2025. And I was like, oh, this isn't going to work. The maths is not maths thing. I saw it coming. So I sat down with
 one of the MPs of the constituencies where two of my cafes are and said to him, if you do X, Y, Z, places are going to close down. And he was all very interesting. Thank you for telling me. I'll write to the Treasury, that kind of thing. And then fast forward to March 2025, there were places already deciding to close down.
 So pre-April 25, they were going, they were forecasting, they were looking ahead and they were saying, this isn't going to work, so we're going to close. And I found that heartbreaking. I found it infuriating because I had sat there in front of my MP a couple of times by that point. And then that weekend, I remember going to my friend's 40th birthday party. This is related, I promise. And a few people that I haven't seen in a while were like, oh, how's business, etc. How's it going?
 I was like, you know what, it's tough. It's pretty tough. Like, I'm not going to mince it for you. And they were like, oh, that's interesting. Why? You know, your places are always really busy. And I was like, baffled. And it just occurred to me how, why would they know? I don't understand the nuances of their job. I don't understand the ins and outs of their job and how the budget affects their businesses. So why would they understand? And it was incredibly naive of me to think that they
 I would. So I then went home and the next day I sat in front of a camera and did a video about it and it just went viral. Like it just, I've never had anything like that happen. I had something like 1000 followers and then three days later I had like 5000 followers. Like it was crazy. It just really resonated with people. I just managed to say it in a way
 that made sense to people. So then from there, I was like, right, well, this is important because this is getting through to people. From that, I ended up down in the House of Commons speaking there to the Business and Trade Committee. And I was like, oh, we're getting somewhere with this. So let's just keep going.
sukh hayre   11:54
 Awesome. So how did your fellow hospitality, your peers in the hospitality businesses, how did they respond to you at all?
Lydia   12:05
 Yeah, that was overwhelming actually and still is to this day. It's one of the things that I struggle with the most because the overwhelming response was, oh my God, thank you. Like, thank you for speaking out. Thank you for saying it. Because there is this unspoken shame of people, number one, not wanting to admit that they're struggling too, because they think
 Oh my God, it makes me a bad business owner. I should be able to figure this out. Also, thank you for explaining it in a way that my customers then understand, because you have places that are really busy closing down and people being like, I don't understand, like, you're really busy. And they're like, thank you for explaining that. And then also I just get this influx of
 heartbreaking messages for people who are going through some real **** and really struggling and
 not really knowing what to do, and then seeing me as some kind of like answer, maybe something that I can help them with. And there are things that I can help with and have helped with, absolutely, because I've certainly learned some things along the way in terms of operating a smaller business and growing and scaling and that kind of thing. I will absolutely always help if I can.
 But I hear some really heartbreaking stories.
sukh hayre   13:16
 Yeah. Obviously, that's from the independent sector. Have you had any income support from the more corporate entities? I know Birmingham Midlands has got quite a rich history in food production in hospitality services. Have they reached out to you at all or from the corporate world at all? Or have they issued your support?
 Have they not shared your concerns?
Lydia   13:40
 I mean, not that I know of. I've ended up meeting, I don't know if you know, but there's a lobby group or a lobby group or a trade body called UK Hospitality. They think that they're, though they say that they're the largest trade group in the UK for hospitality. They are often criticised for only working with like the big corporates and stuff, and you can see them really trying to sort of
sukh hayre   13:42
 Mm.
 Yeah.
Lydia   14:00
 hone in on the independence off the back of that. They've certainly reached out. I've met them a few times. I've been on panels or been around tables with them a few times. So I guess to some extent you can see that, yes, that side of the industry absolutely is lobbying as well. But there, I'm also in so many WhatsApp groups and like round tables with other, or like with some big hitters in the hospitality industry who are frustrated
 that more of those people aren't speaking out. Like some of the like, I mean, not big corporate, but like big name chefs, for example, the ones that get a lot of followers. Like, where are you guys? Like, why are you staying quiet? A few of them say a little bit here and there, but yeah, no, they could be better.
sukh hayre   14:27
 Yeah.
 Yeah, I think it was, I think Tom Kerridge was the most visible one recently. I think he kind of spoke out against, I think, one of the Labour policies on which one, which one specifically it was, maybe in the, maybe the business rates, the business rates one, I think it was. But that's after he was supporting them all for the last 18 months. It's only when he actually kind of hit him, did he actually speak out? But I think
Lydia   14:48
 Mhm.
 Okay.
sukh hayre   15:05
 people have, especially in the industry, are going to have a wider view. And it's a supply chain from the independent sector into the medium, small and medium enterprises that end up being corporates. I think they kind of forget that a little bit. And having worked for one of these big corporates, a lot of the ideas that they have for their brands,
 Then they can have the independent sector, anyway, either even by them.
Lydia   15:28
 That's interesting.
sukh hayre   15:31
 Now, I said previous to some of those conversations is like, ohh, is so and so down there is doing really well, we'll do that.
Lydia   15:37
 Mm.
 Well, you see this in Starbucks models, like in the last five, six years, a lot of Starbucks have started to look suspiciously like your lovely little neighbourhood hipster coffee shop. They completely rebranded and redid their menus to model the thing that people were really enjoying drinking. Like you can see it happening in real time.
sukh hayre   15:58
 Yeah, I mean, this is my own biases. I love an independent.
 high-endish pub and it ****** me off when I have to go and look at it, I have to go and look at the small print of the website and go down to the bottom, disclaimer, and it's owned by one of the big pub companies because obviously they're branding themselves as independent and not having the Marstons or the Green King or the big brand on the front of it, which is a little bit frustrating because
Lydia   16:15
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Mm.
sukh hayre   16:25
 You always think you found a little gem when it's independently owned. But you come across a couple of them all got the same menus in that, damn it. So obviously, when you talked about lots of issues from taxation, business rates, how are you finding the staffing side of things? Are you still able to recruit?
Lydia   16:28
 It is.
sukh hayre   16:45
 Teenagers looking for the first job, or is it even more difficult than it ever was?
Lydia   16:49
 Well, I mean, there's two sides to this in terms of like, if we put a job advert out and we need somebody, can we fill that position? Absolutely. People want jobs, they do. And there is especially there is a youth unemployment problem in this country. But the real question is, can we afford to hire them? So it's like, it's not, it's not
 do you want to and is it possible? It's more the fact that, and disclaimer, every time I mention national living wage, people seem to think that I'm like anti a higher national living wage. Absolutely not. Should people be able to work full time and pay their bills? Absolutely, of course they should. But the problem is now is that
 with such a high national living wage for younger people.
 they are really expensive to hire. And often when you're giving people their first jobs, they require handholding. They require a lot of training, a lot of work. So we cannot afford to have people of that age with that little experience working in our industry anymore.
 And that breaks my heart because it's so important to me to give people those experiences. I just said to you, I have my first job at 13 and I was working. I think I learned some really important social skills, life skills, real world experiences in the hospitality industry. And I feel really passionately
 But what it does to the job market, especially in our industry, is it means that you cannot pay your managers, your experienced people, the money that they deserve. They are on 10 pence, 20 pence more an hour than the 21 year old that came in with very little experience.
 because so much of our labour budget is being soaked up by that younger end of the market. So the genuine problem is incentivising people to take those management positions. Why would you? Do you know what I mean? Like when the pay is so different, when the pay is, sorry, the pay is so similar,
 Why would you, why would you not just come in as an entry level barista or wait person and earn a very similar amount of money and not have to worry about work? And that is the knock on effect of the last two budgets having such massive wage increases for young people. And again, I'll bookend it again with,
sukh hayre   19:10
 Yeah.
Lydia   19:13
 I am for a higher national living wage, but there has to be some kind of balance whereby we can still, maybe we'll offset it with a different national insurance for people of that age. Maybe we have some kind of incentive via tax in some other way. So this person can take home the money and contribute to the economy and get all the experience that they need.
 but we are still able to run our businesses.
sukh hayre   19:39
 Yeah, I don't think it's just the last two budgets at least, you know, that policy students don't understand the consequences of their policies. And what might sound like a great idea, oh, everyone's going to be guaranteed 10 pounds 50 an hour, 12 pounds 50, whatever the living wage is or the minimum wage. But my dad was an electrician. And back in the late 80s, early 90s, I mean, there's plenty of people, half my family,
Lydia   19:51
 Yes.
sukh hayre   20:02
 would be apprenticeships with my dad and learn the electrical trade. And it was a work for him because obviously he's got a conveyor belt of new trades people that you can obviously train up and work for him for a little bit before doing their own thing. But then I think it was the apprenticeship, I think the government ended the support, I think it was a Conservative government back in the early 90s that kind of ended support for apprenticeships.
 And all of a sudden, he wasn't hiring any more apprenticeships anymore, simply because he couldn't, he'd have to pay them out of his own pocket, he couldn't recharge them to clients. And what does that happen? The knock-on consequences are, well, we don't have a generation of people who aren't trained in the trade skills, but they live instead, they go to university because
 Obviously, we made sure everybody made sure everyone go to university to do what? I don't know, a paper degree, and then you got no trade, you've got no not enough workforce to going to do the trade jobs. So, we import all those in. So, in the early 2000s, you have loads of the Eastern Europeans, they coming over and doing those jobs.
Lydia   20:46
 Mhm.
 Yeah.
sukh hayre   21:00
 and what the trades people that you do have, it puts them out of work because they haven't been undercut. So all these policies have knock-on effects that kind of last. It might only be around for a couple for a couple of years, but they have knock-on effects that can last a generation at least. So I think you're definitely right in terms of
 All these ideas, I mean, the last couple of podcasts we've done have been on kind of more free market economics. And I'm a big fan of that myself in terms of let the markets, like the government can't manage an economy. They don't have the right incentives. I don't believe they do anyway. But I think one of the other things that you mentioned this, excuse me,
 Viva technology focused podcast. Have you kind of?
 looked at technology, technological solutions to any of your kind of business challenges, or maybe enhancing the experience of your customers, or is that not something that you kind of want to go down? Because I know a lot of the big corporates will end up, rather than paying that extra, those extra staffing costs, will end up automating
 some of the processes in implementing kiosks as a potential technology. Have you considered that?
Lydia   22:09
 Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm aware of it as a thing. My opinion on that is, is that there's two ends of the market here. We just talked about how you're not going to go back if you don't feel special or if you haven't been made to feel special. I have so many examples where I've had fantastic evenings and they're years gone by and I still rave about them. I don't remember what I ate anymore.
sukh hayre   22:13
 Yeah.
Lydia   22:31
 But I remember how I felt when I remember the experience that I had. You ain't going to get that from a QR code. You're not. And I'm not anti-technology. I'm not. If I turn up somewhere and there's a QR code on the table, fine, I'll use it. All good. But when I say that we're the higher end of the market and we are demanding relatively high prices for
 a brunch and a coffee, I believe that we owe our customers a better experience. And I think that I can 100% see why the fast food chains in the lower end of the market have embraced technology in that manner. I can totally get it, because you know, for example, you know, Wetherspoons are probably still charging something like
 599 for a full English breakfast or something. And it's like, I know for a fact that we couldn't even buy the produce in for that price. So at the quality that we buy, if that makes sense. So I can see why they do it. I think the higher end of the market, I feel quite passionately that we have to hold on to that kind of human experience and that's what's going to elevate it.
sukh hayre   23:20
 Mm.
Lydia   23:31
 Also, I've just said I feel really passionately about hiring people. And if you're ever going to talk about what gets me out of bed in the morning, it's the people. We embrace technology in other elements of the business and absolutely have done. Like when it comes to like our POS system is super smart. When it comes to how we cost things,
 Our eye on the details of that is crazy in terms of like what we buy in, what goes out, how we've costed it, how we account for stock, that kind of thing. Like for a small Andy, we are incredibly tech focused in that respect. We've just embraced an entire new platform for like HR.
 and rotary, which is all online and is making my manager's lives so much easier. You know, so in certain aspects, absolutely. But I am at this moment still like, no, no, we've got to hold on to human experience when it comes to the cafe experience itself.
sukh hayre   24:21
 Mm.
 Yeah, I think you'll probably hit the nail on the head there. You can't be trying to be a hospitality business and sticking technology in front of people. So how about the kind of food delivery platforms that have kind of come around? Are you, have you embraced those at all or how do you view those and how they've impacted your business?
Lydia   24:39
 Nick.
 Yeah, I think they're great. We embraced them a lot during the pandemic. Like we made we made a lot of money on them during the pandemic, which is which was great and was really, really useful. I think that where they haven't done us a favour and where they continue to not do a favour is how much money they take from you, like percentage wise, commission wise.
sukh hayre   24:52
 The.
 Mmh.
Lydia   25:09
 But we have to see it as a marketing platform. Like for example, I was with a friend and we were in an area that we didn't know. We were going to go out to eat, like we did go out to eat physically. But I was about to get my phone out and start Googling and start looking at reviews and things. And she got out her phone. I'd never thought of this. I started looking on Uber Eats.
 for like restaurants in the area so she could scroll through all of their menus and then we could decide where we were going to eat. We didn't use Uber Eats that night, by the way, but like as a marketing platform, I was like, wow, people do this and they can push you in front of people that you otherwise wouldn't get to.
 It's a great additional revenue for us. It's not a massive part of what we do. Generally during the day as well, people don't order as much during the day on those kind of things as they do. And we are a largely daytime establishment. But yeah, as a marketing tool, like I don't think it should be sniffed at like at all. And they do put you in front of new people and they helped us through a really tough time.
sukh hayre   25:57
 Yeah.
Lydia   26:09
 you know, they took food to people's doors when we couldn't, you know, and I'll never forget that. So yeah, I'm all for them.
sukh hayre   26:16
 Yeah. OK, cool. Now, I've got some friends who obviously in in the industry, and they might have physical locations, but 70% of their businesses buy the apps, because it's the buying habits have changed for customers. So, I think obviously it's a different experience. It's not the hospitality, so it is just food delivery, it's just...
Lydia   26:26
 There you go.
sukh hayre   26:35
 It's serving food, isn't it? So, looking ahead.
 What are your thinking cap on, or with your futuristic cap on? What do you think the industry will look like in the next 10 years, and not just in the food and beverages scene, but also in hospitality scene, but also kind of the high street in general? Do you think it can be turned around?
Lydia   26:56
 Oh, I'm such a positive person and I try really hard to like put out this positive energy. So I do think you need to be the change that you want to see. And I think that we can bring about change. I think it really, really depends on what government comes in next or if our current government is willing to listen at any point.
 There's two sides to this. If we carry on the way that we are, just like government blinkers on, refusing to listen and just put, you know, digging their heels in and saying, no, we were right. It is what it is. I think our high streets are going to start looking even sadder. I think that it's going to be harder and harder to go out to eat. It's going to be harder and harder for us to employ young people and it's going to be pretty bleak.
 But do I think it can be turned around? Absolutely. And this is why I keep lobbying for this. This is why I still keep showing up to every single meeting that I'm invited to, no matter who it's with or how many. We make a joke, right? When we go to these round tables, there's often quite a lot of the same people around the table, like in terms of representing the hospitality industry. We make a joke that we could do each other's intros at this point, because like, I know what he's going to say and he knows what I'm going to say. But
sukh hayre   27:40
 Engage.
Lydia   28:03
 I will keep showing up and I will keep saying it because I believe that if we get the right people to listen and the right people to see sense, we get some kind of emergency measure tax situation, this could be turned around. It could because it's just, I say it's just money. Money is one of the things that keeps me up most at night.
 But I mean, it's just an equation, right? It's just a sum that doesn't make sense at the moment. So if we can move this biggest lever, which is VAT, by the way, it could change everything.
sukh hayre   28:36
 So is that, if there's one thing you could change, would that be VAT? Just go into the details of that if you don't mind.
Lydia   28:40
 Yeah.
 100%. OK, in a nutshell, in our industry, so VAT, we you put there's 20% that we collect for the government on on services and on goods and services, and it's paid quarterly, right? But the biggest difference in hospitality is that we buy pretty much all of our goods in at 0% VAT. So we're buying it with no VAT on, but we're paying VAT on it. So we cannot offset anywhere
 near as much as other industries. So in terms of ratio of what we pay and the burden put on hospitality, it's wild. That based on also how national insurance falls, how PAYE falls, how corporation tax falls, glass tax, sugar tax, like all the other taxes that we are we are hit by,
 means that we, this is why places are closing down, because like I said, we've squeezed all the profit out of it. So now we're talking about, well, places are closing down because we can't put prices up anymore. People stop coming through the door. So you end up in minus figures. That's how it's happening. What's the difference if we were to reduce VAT down to 10%?
 like much of Europe, by the way, this isn't just us asking for something that we've just made-up out of nowhere, is we can make going out to eat more affordable. We could bring our prices back down again. People would go out more. We would generate more revenue. We would create more jobs, which means that people would go out and spend more in the economy. People who are smarter than I
 have modelled this and have shown it to government. UK Hospitality did a very, very convincing model of what this would look like in three, four, five years time and it works out net positive for the Treasury. I work with a group called Wonky Table Hospitality who have also just modelled this and shown it to government. Like a load of people have modelled this and shown that it's
 And it works in Europe, right? I don't know when was the last time you went on holiday in Europe. Their hospitality scene is thriving. Tuesday afternoon, Thursday night, Sunday morning, there are squares full of people enjoying food and drink with their friends and family. Next time you go out in Europe, when you're fortunate enough to go out, look at the receipt.
 Look at what it says VAT on there. It's the answer.
sukh hayre   30:49
 Yeah, I've...
 I think you're right, because when you just said that, when was the last time I was out in Europe? And it was probably just over a year, about a year ago, it was in Budapest. Me and five mates sitting outside, have a bar, we were drinking for about 3-4 hours on the truck, some food as well. And the bill came to 100 EUR.
 Would we expect to pay 3, 400 here for the equivalent? And yeah, you won't get any argument for me about taxation because I hate all taxes, not just VAT.
Lydia   31:13
 Yep, yep.
 I mean, I mean, we've got to pay tax, right? Like, the, the, the...
sukh hayre   31:27
 I'm not so sure.
Lydia   31:28
 Oh, I mean, I'm pretty sure that our country needs to run somehow.
sukh hayre   31:36
 I will compromise and say 10%. So that's my great big brained economic idea is you can have all the taxes you want, or we keep the existing ones you have, but every single tax is at 10%. That's it. And that's a reasonable, I think that's a reasonable, fair amount. Everyone can calculate what 10% is as opposed to 17 here and 6 1/2 here.
Lydia   31:40
 I think.
 I think...
 This is OK.
 The thing that I'm trying to say to MPs at the moment and policymakers is, because they're all like, oh, we're in a massive deficit and it works out as a negative to the Treasury. And I'm like, I understand that that seems really scary to you. I get it, because you've got the whole country to look after. But would you rather have more tax for fewer businesses, because they're all closing down, by the way,
 or would you rather have less tax for more thriving businesses? Like to me, one far outweighs the other because by the way, the people that are surviving, the people that can carry on paying their tax at their V88 20% are the big corporations who, by the way, a lot of them have offshore
 head offices that where they can offset all of their profits and not pay things like corporation tax in the UK. So someone like Starbucks who are like, oh, we made 25 million profit last year. No, no, no, no, no. They will just pay 25 million in franchise fees to their head office in Seattle, say that they made a loss and not pay any corporation tax in the UK. And that's how they're surviving. So
 That's the world, if we carry on as we are, that's the world we're faced with. It's going to be a lot of chains, a lot of big corps.
sukh hayre   33:06
 Yeah, we don't want that. We like the independent sector, don't we?
Lydia   33:08
 I really don't want that. Like, I really, really don't want that.
sukh hayre   33:12
 Awesome. Well, Lydia Snape, how can our listeners kind of support you in kind of, well, firstly, visit your out, visit your establishments and also support you in your activism work that you're doing at the moment?
Lydia   33:25
 So there are, I mean, there's kind of two things people can do in terms of like supporting independence in hospitality. And I think this is really important to talk about because it's not so easy for me to say just go out and spend money, which by the way, really does help. Like pick your favourite businesses that mean the world to you, the ones that you'd be really heartbroken about if they close and spend your money there when you have it, whenever you can, please do. That's really important.
 But the second one, because it's not that easy to go out anymore, and I get that, write to your MP. Oh my gosh, that is what they are there for. It doesn't need to be long. It doesn't need to be like crazy long and eloquent. Just tell them that you heard a podcast with me on, you heard the struggles that hospitality are going through. You're really frustrated to see loads of places closed down. It means a lot to you. Where do you stand on the VAT issue?
 Ask your MP, where do you stand on that? Put pressure on them. The more people that write to them, the better. In terms of supporting me personally and what I'm doing, I'm really vocal on social media. Instagram is the big one actually for me, is the one where I post the most videos. Rarely a week goes by where I haven't ranted about a couple of things. Some of it, if I remember, I put on TikTok as well.
 But share it, please. Like the thing, the amazing thing is the tables that I have ended up sitting around off the back of where my videos have got shared goes to show actually the power of this. So please, if you go on there and you watch a video, be like, oh, that resonated with me, share it. Because the other really important thing is that when I do end up around these tables with politicians, policymakers, that kind of thing,
 They are all middle-aged white men, all of them. I am often the only woman around the table and often being half Greek, I end up being the ethnic minority as well. It's disgusting. Like it's not good enough. It does not represent our industry. So share it, get more people involved, get more people aware.
sukh hayre   35:07
 Amazing. Well, Lydia Snape will tag all your socials and Warwick Street Kitchens in the descriptions of this podcast. But keep fighting the good fight and thank you for appearing on the DME podcast.
Lydia   35:18
 Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.
sukh hayre stopped transcription