Vote with your forks and eat local

This comment article is written by Rob Buckland, editor of Bristol Business News

No sooner have eager young diners in Bristol put down their forks at the end of a meal at one of the city’s new eateries than another venue pops up down the road.

So they head off to try out another pulled pork and craft beer pop-up with ‘natural’ bare brick walls and staffed by earnest young men with beards.

Bristol’s eating out and drinking scene is certainly undergoing a revival – possibly a revolution. It is at its busiest since the late-1990s when Whiteladies Road became one long trendy cocktail lounge and every cavernous Corn Street banking hall became a bar.

But is it sustainable? How many of these of-the-moment places will survive? Bristol has a rich and vibrant food culture – and fantastic events like Bristol Food Connections, Eat Drink Bristol Fashion and its Love Food Festivals are giving it a higher, national profile.

But Bristol’s streets are also littered with the ghosts of once cutting-edge bars and diners that lost their bite. The problem is that when competition becomes fierce, it’s usually the independent, locally-owned venues that are forced to put up the shutters rather than the bland, national groups of identikit bars, cafes and restaurants with deeper pockets and zero-hour contracts.

That’s what is known as the free market – and it doesn’t work in favour of the little guys.

Witness the extraordinary efforts some multinational fast-food joints or coffee bars will go to when they want to open on a particular street. Recent cases in Bristol illustrate how they are prepared to throw crazy amounts of money – and resort to intensive lobbying – to secure the best slots and keep out the competition.

That’s known as the free market, too; though, contrary to claims, it’s the big businesses and landlords that benefit in the long run and not the consumer.

(Fortunately this is not always the case. I heard recently of one landlord who rejected an approach from a branded coffee shop in favour of an independent, local operator to preserve the unique feel of their street.)

Bristol is known in the industry as a great test-bed for new food and drink concepts because of its demographics and lower entry costs than London. It’s also spawned an extraordinary number of home-grown food and drink businesses that have gone on to national or regional success such as Las Iguanas, Loungers and Boston Tea Party. And, as the site of the first Berni Inn, it can rightfully claim to be the birthplace of casual dining.

Unfortunately it cuts both ways and Bristol is now firmly on the wish list for restaurant chains looking for their next outlet – witness the recent arrival of Five Guys, Wildwood and, next year, MeatLiquor, along with many more.

If Bristol really wants to be a food city, rather than a city for foodies, it needs to support its independent restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and bars. Bristol needs more Friska and Thali, and fewer national and multinational chains importing their branded concepts and exporting their profits from the city.

So in 2015 let’s make it a real Bristol food revolution, vote with our forks and eat local.