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Friday Wrap: A round-up of the week's hospitality news

Chris Druce
Friday 03 July 2009 13:12
Chris Druce: moving on up

Don't leave me this way! All good things end dear readers and this is my last Friday Wrap as I’m off to pastures new. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show, which must go on, after all.

Looks like it's most certainly been squeaky bum time for Gordon Ramsay recently, with global expansion putting Gordon Ramsay Holdings under a whole lot of pressure, bearing down on me, pushing down on you.

Still, If you want to know what love is, it isn't Capital Pubs boss Clive Watson’s view on the controversial beer tie, which he hates and, unusually within the on-trade, wants to see investigated by the Competition Commission.

Could it be magic? Well no, but mystery surrounds the future of Michelin-starred restaurant Gambero Rosso in Italy, after it emerged that it has been closed for several weeks during the busy summer period.

Now, I fought the law and the law won, so remember that. What am I on about? The news that restaurant operators made up the vast majority of employers fined for using illegal workers since tougher laws were introduced last year, according to new Home Office figures.

Some people think I’m bonkers, but I just think I’m free. Certainly the chef that smashed up his place of work, got a fine, and then was invited back by the new owners to work for them, essentially as he’s so good, has had a mad few months. Not the story of a charmless man, then.

Although all the roads that lead you there are winding, and all the lights that light the way are blinding, customers still value a clean hotel room over anything else when it comes to even budget accommodation.

Without a brand new combine harvester or its keys in sight, Sodexo has still managed to achieve Red Tractor status for 450 of its sites.

And more than two thirds of the UK's hotel operators are in financial danger, analyst firm Plimsoll Publishing has warned.

But the best will survive and you can celebrate excellence by entering our Hotel Cateys. But be quick. The deadline is today.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.
 

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Quote of the Week 
"It is possible simultaneously to be spending significant money on 'cleaning up the Thames', as Belu was and is, without yet actually cleaning up the Thames (this is the nature of infrastructural spending)."
A Belu spokeswoman on its delayed Rubbish Muncher.


By Chris Druce

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