From Soho to the south east, characterful pubs are outperforming glass boxes – and there’s a reason behind this movement. The UK pub sector is no stranger to reinvention, but what’s happening now feels different. In London and beyond, a new generation of high performing, food focused pubs is reshaping the industry. Welcome to the era of the “gastropub 2.0” – a movement defined by experience, quality and a deep respect for characterful buildings.

 

As a hospitality focused real estate agent, I see sector trends develop in real time, and one is afoot in the pub world with the evolution of the gastropub, which has emerged in the post-pandemic world of the last few years. One of the clearest trends right now is the pivot away from polished, anonymous retail units and toward authentic, idiosyncratic spaces – particularly heritage pubs with soul, history and built-in atmosphere.

 

A key difference between the humbler gastropub (a term coined in the 1990s by two London pub owners) and the “gastropub 2.0” is that while the food offer of the former was generally seen as complementary to the pub, the latter has seen the dining element become the more dominant component in the relationship, with customers travelling from afar for the experience, more akin to dining at a fashionable Michelin-star restaurant than visiting a traditional pub. Nevertheless, this isn’t just about better food in pubs, which has, of course, been done historically by celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal. It’s about a wider cultural shift in how people consume, socialise and choose where to spend their time and money. 

 

We’ve seen this shift playing out in parallel across other parts of the food and beverage world. The rise of artisan coffee culture, often housed in converted railway arches, corner units or even repurposed sheds, proves that customers value uniqueness over uniformity. Grab-and-go concepts like shacks, kiosks and market stalls have found huge success precisely because they reject the sterile homogeneity of modern retail. 

Argent’s Coal Drops Yard redevelopment in King’s Cross and British Land’s regeneration of Canada Water, both in London, have seen this trend propelled into large-scale developments, with a focus on heritage buildings over soulless glass boxes. That same appetite for authenticity is now feeding into the pub world, where best-in-class operators are creating environments that feel warm, personal and distinctly uncorporate.

 

And it’s working. The Public House Group’s Pelican in Notting Hill and Hero in Maida Vale, Guy Ritchie’s Lore of the Land in Fitzrovia – currently fully booked until mid-2026 for its mouth-watering Sunday lunches – and the cult-favourite Tamil Prince in Islington (helmed by head chef Prince Durairaj and Glen Leeson) all combine an elevated food offer with historic, personality-rich buildings. Meanwhile, Crisp Pizza at The Chancellors in Hammersmith proves that if the quality’s right, customers will queue out the door – just like they do at the hottest street food pop-ups. It’s increasingly apparent that high-end/experiential dining in pubs is becoming one of the defining cultural phenomena of the hospitality sector in the 2020s.

 

Even in Central London, the “gastropub 2.0” is thriving. The Devonshire in Soho, co-founded by Oisín Rogers and Flat Iron’s Charlie Carroll, has brought wood-fired cooking, characterful interiors and exceptional Guinness to a pocket of town once dominated by chain dining. Further east, The Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch (brainchild of James Dye, who runs the Camberwell Arms, Franks and Bambi, and Benjy Leibowitz, who was at JKS and The Nomad in New York City) has transformed a faded restaurant site into a vibrant rotisserie pub full of energy and purpose.

 

Beyond the capital, the Lazy Lobster in Whitstable, a seafood haven nestled in a 19th century Kent pub, has recently opened to show this trend isn’t confined to cities. Groups like Greene King (with its Hickory’s brand), Heartwood Collection, and Young’s are doubling down on food-led formats that combine high-quality menus with a strong sense of place. Greene King recently announced ambitious plans to grow Hickory’s by ten sites per year to triple the size of the group by 2030. 

 

Why now? The pandemic and subsequent inflationary pressures have changed how people spend and socialise. Dining and drinking out is no longer routine – it’s an occasion. So when customers go out, they want more than just a meal – they want an experience worth sharing. Pubs, especially those in historic or architecturally interesting buildings, deliver that in spades. There’s also a rising rejection of bland. Consumers want places that feel real. That’s why we’re seeing demand shift away from the glass-box units in new schemes – built for flexibility but lacking soul – and back to buildings with a story. A Victorian pub with its tiled floor and wood panelling offers a richness of context that no unit with a retail use class and curtain walling ever could.

 

Social media amplifies this too. A beautifully plated roast in a centuries-old pub, caught in golden hour and paired with a well-pulled pint, plays far better on social media than a meal in a featureless shell. Influencers like Eating With Tod (1.8 million followers on Instagram and arguably Britain’s most powerful food critic/influencer) are shaping food culture through storytelling – and pubs, perhaps unexpectedly, are providing some of the best content to influence not only a domestic audience, but also tourists visiting from further afield who are eager to visit authentic British pubs with an elevated food offer beyond bland fish and chips. 

 

What we’re witnessing isn’t just a revival – it’s a repositioning. The “gastropub 2.0” isn’t an anomaly – it’s the next logical step in the evolution of British hospitality: rooted in heritage, elevated by quality and powered by experience. And with many of the early post-pandemic pioneers now preparing to expand into ever more prime sites, along with new entrants stalking the same spaces seeking to introduce new concepts, the momentum is only growing. Various deals are in the pipeline to create new food-focused concepts in traditional pubs across the capital and beyond.  

 

In a world that’s increasingly craving connection, character and craft, pubs – those most British of institutions – are proving once again they’re more than up to the challenge. One thing is for sure, there’s never been a better time to experience such an eclectic array of dining options in a pub setting, and I’m sure you’ll all join me in raising a glass to anything that helps to preserve and innovate the great British pub.

National Fish and Chip Day on 6 June represents the annual celebration of the country’s most popular meal, but despite it being many people’s favourite, there continues to be warnings about the potential closure of traditional fish and chip shops that could see them become extinct within 20 years.

 

Such alarming predictions come from operators who have been sounding the death knell for these stalwarts of local high streets for a number of years. Despite these ongoing doom-laden warnings, the UK still has around 10,500 chippies, according to the National Federation of Fish Friers (NFFR). Although this represents a fall of two-thirds since their heyday in the 1930s, the numbers have held up pretty well over recent years.     

 

The chief concern of the fish and chip shop owners is the continued price increases they have faced. Over the past five years, the average cost of the dish has risen 52% – from £6.48 to £9.88, according to the Office for National Statistics – on the back of increases in the cost of energy and gas, ingredients, the national minimum wage and national insurance as well as supply chain issues caused by the war in Ukraine.

 

The reality is that these factors have impacted all hospitality businesses. And the argument from the fish and chip shop operators that their businesses are under threat because the dish is no longer seen as a relatively cheap, good value takeaway meal is questionable to me. I struggle to remember when it was actually a cheap takeaway. To my memory, it has long since been priced around the same level as the alternatives it competes against. 

 

Across the market as a whole, pricing certainly does not seem to be a deterrent to the popularity of the dish. In the first quarter, fish and chips was top of the YouGov table of popular dishes, followed by chips (not a particularly well-balanced dish) and then roast chicken. If more proof were needed of its popularity, then consider the recent move by Heinz to rename its tartare sauce as fish & chips sauce. 

 

Where the traditional fish and chop shops have really been suffering is with the dramatic increase in competition they have had to face over recent years. Let’s consider pubs. Many now provide food, and the odds of fish and chips being an option on the menu is extremely high. It’s the same with restaurants – with many venues from the high-end to the greasy spoon end of the market invariably offering their take on the dish.

 

Fish and chip shops have also had to endure an explosion in the number of takeaway joints on high streets that have eaten into their share of stomach. What most of these places offer is delivery, unlike most traditional chippies. When fish is wrapped, it effectively begins steaming itself, so there is a roughly 15-minute window before it gets too soggy. The issue is the thicker, fresh, batter that is used in fish and chip shops compared with the hard, frozen, batter used by the competition such as chicken shops. While some fish and chip shops choose to take the risk and offer delivery, most are resistant to risking delivering a sub-standard product.

 

Without delivery as a sensible option, this undoubtedly cuts fish and chip shops off from the younger end of the market, who are wedded to their deliveries. These youngsters also remain suckers for food on TikTok and Instagram, and whichever way you cut it, fish and chips are a tough one to go viral.

 

These are undoubtedly challenges for fish and chip shops, but with the dish remaining the country’s undisputed favourite, they are surely not insurmountable. Maybe a rebranding exercise that makes them more appealing to the younger grouping would not go amiss. This could promote these treasured venues as the real home of the national dish that sets them apart from the myriad interlopers in the space today.

Do me a favour. Mentally, stand up. Thank you. If you know what your business’ customer lifetime value (CLV) is, sit down. If you’re wondering what CLV is, sit down. If you know what CLV is in theory but don’t think it matters to you (because who has time to worry about anyone’s lifetime for goodness’ sake – I have a business to run), sit down.

 

By the way, you’re also segmenting yourselves right now, and it’s clear there is no one piece of communication that could resonate with or be relevant to, you all. But that’s for another article. Now let’s get back to that CLV shall we? Firstly, what is it, and why does it matter? 

 

Well, CLV tells us how people behave with your business in terms of their frequency and spend. But CLV is also a window into future behaviour, because we can map the current behaviour of new guests or customers against existing CLV bands and predict exactly how those new customers or guests will behave over the year ahead. 

This means, because you know your CLV, you can increase your CLV – changing the trajectory of your business’ growth or decline and giving you more certainty in your revenue.

But that’s not all, because CLV is also the true indicator of your brand’s health. Not open rate, not how many TikTok followers you have, not how many people downloaded your app (because let’s be honest, they only did that to get the welcome offer) – but how long people are willing to spend with you and to what degree. The higher your CLV, the more positive the outlook; the lower, the less time you have to turn things around. 

But like you say, who has time to worry about lifetimes? However, CLV is not based on “lifetime” as you know it, (and this bit is either going to break your heart, or make you stop reading, because the truth hurts) – the average CLV for a hospitality customer is only six to 18 months. No one loves your brand as much as you think they do. So that’s an incredibly short window to get maximum value from your customer base. 

But just when you thought CLV couldn’t do any more for your business, CLV also helps you save cash on spray and pray acquisition and conversion offers. By identifying the highest CLV customers in your base, you can use that information to drive smarter acquisition (of people sharing the same characteristics of those high value customers); and by making sure you direct offers and rewards to the people who will spend the highest and not kill what’s left of your margin. 

So, get ready to move seats, because you might now be opening up a fourth segment – those who now know what CLV is and are starting to worry that their business is missing some pretty crucial insight considering the climate we’re operating in. Assuming that’s you, what are your next steps? 

1. Stop work on your loyalty app. If you don’t know your CLV or frequency, it’s just an expensive vanity project or data capture mechanic at best. You can do way better than that. 

2. Get stuck into your data to identify and profile your key groups, particularly those worth the most to you in terms of spend and margin. You should be looking for high CLV, fast conversion (the sooner you can get that acquisition cost flowing back into the business, the better, right?) and low margin kill.

3. Overlay those segments with sentiment and engagement data, which can be found in most technology stacks, to refine your CLV segments by those who also like you most. These people will be the most lucrative targets of all. 

4. Devise a multi-channel communication plan to drive increased CLV with relevance and resonance – focusing any investment where you are likely to receive the highest return. Remember that segmentation we did earlier? Now you know how that relevant content is going to matter if it’s to drive the behaviour we want to see.

5. Execute that plan by using your data to get closer to your customers and delivering the communications most likely to resonate and trigger the action we want our customers to take next. We have a six-stage “customer conversation” framework, developed over five years and millions of data points, which replicates and accelerates real “human” relationships (and delivers a 32 times return on investment while we’re about it).


6. Test, learn and track the results. Now you’re marketing! 

 

The future of marketing is connection, yet for such a people facing sector, it’s clear we’ve forgotten the customer – and it shows. CLV won’t just tell you how your business is performing. It’ll tell you what kind of business you really are. One built for transactions, and the relentless sales driving rollercoaster that will always lead to or one built for trust. The choice, and the value, is yours.