December 2025 didn’t feel like a normal “festive push”. It felt like Christmas trading was being asked to cover a tax bill, a wage bill, and a demand wobble, all at once. When Barclays says UK consumer card spending fell 1.1% in November and spending in bars, pubs and clubs was down 1.5%, operators heading into December weren’t chasing upside, they were protecting downside.

And the news flow matched that mood. The biggest decisions this month were either about getting bigger quickly, or getting leaner quickly. Very few were about standing still.

Business rates became the story operators can’t dodge

The month’s loudest theme wasn’t a shiny opening, it was the bill landing on the doormat. UKHospitality put a number on it, hospitality properties in England facing an average business rates rise of £32,714 over three years. It also flagged a £318m increase over three years for small hospitality venues. That’s not a rounding error, that’s a new manager’s salary, or the capex budget, or both.

The anger is coming from different corners

This wasn’t just trade bodies doing trade body things. Phil Thorley at Thorley Taverns said the Budget will increase costs by £62,000 annually for his business. Rob Hattersley at Longbow Venues highlighted a 318% increase in rateable value on one of his pubs. Oliver Vaulkhard of Vaulkhard Group talked about a £180,000 cost increase due to the rates revaluation. When operators are quoting their own numbers like this, it’s because they want guests, teams and MPs to understand that “a few percent” isn’t how it’s showing up in the P&L.

The lobbying got sharper too. The British Beer and Pub Association coordinated a letter from over 80 CEOs and warned of a £160m annual tax burden. Campaign for Pubs demanded the April revaluation is scrapped and investigated. Even the night-time economy pushed in, Sacha Lord called the Budget a “shocking betrayal”. Whether anyone likes the tone or not, this is what happens when costs rise faster than customers’ willingness to pay.

Competitive socialising hit its consolidation phase, right before Christmas

If business rates were the cost story, competitive socialising was the demand story. Everyone loves the category when the venues are full, but it’s a high-fixed-cost model, large units, big staff teams, chunky rent. December showed the sector is no longer in the “copy and paste growth” era, it’s in the “prove it works everywhere” era.

The growth forecasts are still huge

Savills says the competitive socialising market could grow to 1,100 sites by 2030, but also warns operators will need to target smaller towns as larger cities approach saturation. That’s a polite way of saying, London and Manchester are getting busy, and the next wave is places where the spend per head is tighter and the recruitment pool is thinner. That’s a tougher operating equation.

But the weaker formats are already being forced to reset

Two big signals landed. Gravity went through a CVA, approved by 86% of its creditors, to “secure long-term future”. And Sixes, the cricket-based concept with 16 venues across England (plus one in the West Indies), went into administration after a challenging trading period. Nobody should be surprised, not because the concepts are bad, but because the model demands a constant flow of bookings. If you’re not winning Friday night, you’re carrying that cost into Monday morning.

The flip side is the category is still attracting serious owners. Ten Entertainment Group buying Fairgame and talking about rapid US rollout is a reminder that good experiences scale, but only if the unit economics are nailed and the proposition is consistent.

Franchise and “asset-light” expansion accelerated, from chicken to coffee

While some big-box leisure models tightened up, QSR and bakery operators kept pushing forward with franchise-heavy expansion. It’s not romantic, but it’s practical. When rates and labour are unpredictable, spreading risk across franchise partners and smaller footprints starts to look sensible.

Wingstop is the cleanest example. It ended December at 85 UK sites after opening in places like Nottingham, Leicester, Glasgow, and Preston, with a stated ambition of 200 sites within five years. That number matters because it forces operators to build systems that work in Bayswater and in Lancashire. The guest doesn’t care that one site is “new” and the other is “busy”. They just want hot food, accurate orders, and a team that looks like it wants to be there.

In bakery, Wenzel’s is already over 100 stores and has started franchising after 50 years, aiming to double its size over the next few years. That’s a big cultural shift for a family operator, because franchising isn’t just growth, it’s letting other people deliver your brand every day.

And in pizza, Papa Johns signed a franchise agreement with Rana Group to open 20 new sites in Northern Ireland over the next decade, creating up to 400 jobs, with the first store already open in Ballymena. The key operator takeaway here is recruitment and training, you can’t “hire your way out” of inconsistent service at that scale. You need a machine that turns new starters into confident team members fast, especially in smaller labour markets.

Big leisure bets are back, and they’re aimed at domestic spend

December also brought a reminder that, despite the cost noise, investors still want UK leisure assets that can pull volume. Planning permission for Universal Studios in Bedfordshire is the headline, the first Universal theme park in the UK, forecast to attract over eight million visitors annually, creating 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent positions. That’s not just a theme park story, it’s a future footfall story for hotels, restaurants, pubs, and transport hubs across the region.

Then there’s Center Parcs, which got planning permission for its first Scottish village, a £450m development in the Scottish Borders with up to 700 lodges, expected to open in summer 2029. It also completed a £10.5m investment in new leisure attractions across its existing six UK and Ireland villages. The pattern is clear, operators are putting money into reasons to travel and reasons to stay longer, because “a nice day out” doesn’t pay the bills anymore.

For everyone else, these mega-projects create both opportunity and pressure. If you’re within 60 minutes of Bedford or the Borders, you’ll get new demand, but you’ll also be competing with employers who can offer stable hours and big training pipelines.

The common thread running through December 2025 is that cost pressure is forcing clarity. Some operators are doubling down on scale and replicable systems, franchising, multi-site rollouts, standardised training. Others are retrenching, restructuring, or reworking the model because the margin isn’t there to carry weak weeks.

Christmas trading will show who guessed right about demand, but the bigger test is January and February. If the proposition only works when the diary is full, it’s not really a proposition, it’s a seasonal event.

Where measurement matters

When business rates jump by £32,714 on average over three years, the only sensible response is to get obsessive about what guests actually notice and what they’ll pay for. That’s where structured customer experience measurement stops being “nice” and starts being margin protection. A run of Mystery Customer Visits can quickly show whether the basics are being delivered consistently across regions, speed of service, cleanliness, order accuracy, confident upsell, because those basics are what stop value-led customers from drifting to the next option. Pair that with Online Reviews Monitoring and multi-site operators can see, week by week, whether complaints are clustering around queues, pricing friction, team attitude, or maintenance issues that quietly kill repeat visits.

January always separates “busy” from “profitable”, and this year it’ll do it fast. If you’d like a sample report or a quick chat about what’s possible, get in touch.