{"id":133807,"date":"2025-05-26T17:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T17:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/133807\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T17:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T17:37:13","slug":"young-people-would-rather-stay-at-home-startling-insight-by-boss-of-birmingham-based-pubs-group-mitchells-butler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/133807\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Young people would rather stay at home&#8221; &#8211; Startling insight by boss of Birmingham-based pubs group Mitchells &#038; Butler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phil Urban, the chief executive of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbplc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mitchells &amp; Butlers<\/a>, said the group would not look to grow in that market because of the challenges it faces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe toughest part of the market right now is late night,\u201d Mr Urban said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re certainly not exposed like pure, late-night operators are, so we\u2019re quite thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/90ba0d5e-1480-45d2-afe8-f9d6800fd3f0.jpeg\"   alt=\"Harvester is owned by M&amp;B\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"w-full max-w-none\"\/>Harvester is owned by M&amp;B<\/p>\n<p>Mitchells, which is based in Fleet Street, Birmingham, owns restaurants, pubs and bar chains including Toby Carvery, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harvester.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harvester<\/a> All Bar One, Nicholson\u2019s, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.millerandcarter.co.uk\/#\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Miller &amp; Carter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While hospitality companies will be hoping for a boost in spending over the bank holiday weekend, family-focused events like Mother\u2019s Day and Easter have been the driving force behind a jump in visitors for many chains.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Marston\u2019s, which runs about 1,300 pubs in the UK, said such occasions were bringing in more customers, while it has recently invested in a new sports pub concept to capitalise on the growing market.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/45fbfb64-4c3b-442f-b82a-15a17793fbb0.jpg\"   alt=\"A branch of All Bar One\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"w-full max-w-none\"\/>A branch of All Bar One<\/p>\n<p>Mr Urban said younger people were straying from previous generations who would be more inclined to \u201cgo out late night and stay out\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think social media means that you don\u2019t have to do that to stay in touch with your friends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The booming takeaway and home delivery market was also having an influence, he suggested, adding: \u201cPeople are often meeting beforehand to have something to eat, having a few drinks at home, before going out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, those pure late-night, club operators, have certainly got a smaller market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t go back into that sort of club market, it\u2019s not for us, because I do think it\u2019s going to take a long while to reverse \u2013 if it does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said all the company\u2019s brands were \u201cdoing well\u201d, but that its Irish pub and bar chain O\u2019Neill\u2019s was \u201cprobably having the toughest time\u201d due to its exposure to the night-time industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Urban, the chief executive of Mitchells &amp; Butlers, said the group would not look to grow in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,51,487,58860,393,77,4884,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-133807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cost-of-living","12":"tag-dining-out","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}