Cost of Living: Glasgow cafe owner's bills hit over £45K per year

The Trongate cafe has been open for over a decade, but owner Ben Rose told the Glasgow Times that Rose and Grants would not have been able to survive if it opened today.

If the business was just starting out amid the cost of living crisis, "it would be dead by now, absolutely gone," Ben says.

The 46-year-old says it took around seven or eight years to build the cafe into what it is today, which is helping it survive.

READ MORE: Successful bakery owner hits out as cost-of-living crisis threatens Glasgow eateries

He added: “It’s only because we’re big enough and established enough.

“And that’s the worst part. You just start tackling your start-up debt and it just starts to work, and it just starts to feel like it’s worthwhile.

“And that was a great time for me, but people who are just going through that now are just going to fold and walk away.”

Ben admits he feels "destroyed" watching Glasgow's independent eateries fall victim to the cost crisis.

READ MORE: Glasgow chef Julie Lin on saying goodbye to Julie's Kopitiam

He said: "These factors combined create a perfect storm of food price increases, wage rises, massive hype in energy bills and a falling market where customers have less to spend."

Rose and Grant's only uses electricity due to circumstance, but even opting for a renewable energy provider didn't help with bills.

Ben has seen his monthly energy bills shoot up from around £780 per month to around £4300 per month.

He said: “It’s gone from about eight or nine thousand a year to about £46,000 a year.”

Trading during the week has also taken a dip as customers grapple with their own energy prices at home.

Ben said: "What’s happened is our weekends are as good as they ever were, but we’ve lost about 20% of our total sales because people don’t come out during the week in the way that they used to.

“Our regular customers come less often. Weekends are fine, no issue there, but we’ve lost that casual trade."

READ MORE: The owner of Glasgow cafe Rose and Grants talks of vegan square sausage success

With the massive increase in costs, Ben has found the business to be down about 20% since last summer and has lost almost 40% of trade from Monday to Friday.

Ben said: “People are still going out to treat themselves but that weekday market is just gone, and our breakfast market."

The cafe thrives on its lunchtime trade but fewer and fewer customers are stopping in for a morning coffee.

Ben is hoping that customers will return when the weather improves so he and his team can keep doing what they love.

The longtime owner said: “I’ve seen so many businesses like ours fall in the last year. I’ve never seen anything like it before."

He added: "We are an established business with an amazingly loyal and lovely customer base and have been here for 12 years now.

"But not many years ago we turned over half as much as we do now.

"If that was the case now with all these factors there is no way we could survive, so our size means we can hopefully trade out of this.

"If the government pulls support, particularly on smaller hospitality venues it will be devastating.

“I think we’ll survive but if we’re facing the same levels of prices next winter, it will be horrific.”

Cost of Living Crisis: Why are so many Glasgow restaurants closing?

As part of a special investigation, we will be delving into the many closures plaguing the food and drink industry to find out what it means for our city.

Please contact Marissa Macwhirter (marissa.macwhirter@newsquest.co.uk) or Sarah Campbell (sarah.campbell@newsquest.co.uk) if you have any questions, comments, or tips.