UK pubs and restaurants toast festive sales surge despite cost pressures

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Friends and families gathered together to eat and drink over the festive season for the first time since Covid, boosting Christmas sales in the face of the cost of living crisis, according to hospitality companies Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn, and the pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers.

Whitbread, which also owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, said it had seen almost 17% like-for-like growth in the UK in sales of its Premier Inn hotel rooms, and food and drink at its restaurants in the 13 weeks to 1 December, compared with a year earlier.