H1 2025 hospitality trends: London footfall dips, new openings slow, delivery promos spike

As expected, the UK hospitality sector has faced mounting cost and staffing pressures during H1 2025, intensified by April’s changes to employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage. These challenges, among others – including higher inflation rates – have shaped several key trends:

Despite a similar rate across both quarters of 2025, overall, the number of new openings in H1 2025 (1%) was less than half the rate seen during H1 2024 (2.5%), showing a significant reduction in growth. Store openings across all fast food segments – including bakery/sandwich, chicken, coffee, ethnic and pizza – have slowed down, with the exception of the burger segment, which maintained the same pace of openings (2.6%) as in 2024. Pizza was the only segment to register a decline in shop numbers during H1 2025 (-0.7%), with many facing greater challenges in achieving operational efficiency due to heightened price competition and limited opportunities for price differentiation.

Despite traditionally having led footfall growth regionally, the capital city recorded a decline in traffic for the first time since the post-Covid recovery period. By contrast, Northern Ireland remains the fastest growing region, accelerating further in 2025, followed by the South, Wales and Scotland.

While London may be lagging, overall footfall traffic in 2025 has performed better than in the first six months of last year (-0.5% vs -1.2%), driven mainly by footfall growth within fast food (+0.8% vs -0.9%). April and May demonstrated the strongest growth, making Q2 performance look much stronger than both Q1 and 2024 overall. However, June showed the weakest year-on-year trend (February 2025 excluded due to having an extra day), and overall like-for-like guest numbers are still declining, even in fast food (-1.3%), as traffic growth has been outpaced by new openings.

In H1 2025, restaurants increased the number of promotional offers by 23%, maintaining a similar pace to the 25% growth seen in 2024. This means the volume of promotions has grown by nearly 50% over two years. Growth in delivery platforms has been even more dramatic, rising 35% in 2024 and accelerating to 93% during H1 2025 alone – more than doubling promotional activity in just two years.

The average discount remains stable at 25%, but discounts offered through loyalty apps is 31% – higher than in delivery at 19%. Special pricing was the top tactic among price promotions in restaurant apps, up from 54% in 2024 to 59% in H1 2025.

Daypart trends are shifting. Breakfast traffic has slowed, while the afternoon period (3 to 6 pm) – which was declining in 2024 – is now the fastest growing. Dinner (6 to 9 pm) also improved versus last year. Late evening remains in negative territory (-3.2%) – albeit, this daypart has seen declines narrow considerably compared to the same period last year (-16.7% during H1 2024). Notably, 78% of 3 to 6 pm growth came from bakeries and coffee shops, likely driven by commuters returning from offices.

Maria Vanifatova, CEO of Meaningful Vision, says the shift to off-peak snacking and early dining can be explained by further changes in hybrid working: “In 2023–24, the market was in recovery mode after the pandemic. As people returned to offices, we saw growth in breakfast and lunch trading, particularly in London and other major cities, with an emphasis on central business districts. It now appears that this source of growth has run its course, with more consumers adopting flexible schedules or hybrid working patterns, which leads them to eat outside of traditional meal times.”

Reflecting on the new openings and footfall data, she adds: “Regional differences are largely driven by new openings. Northern Ireland is growing the fastest because it has the highest rate of new store openings. At the same time, though, like-for-like guest numbers are not increasing, which means that simply expanding the number of outlets is a limited growth strategy in a market where demand is struggling. New customers are being captured mainly by new chains and by independents that are facing intense competition.

“The fact we’re seeing traffic growth outpaced by new openings reflects a typical market pattern in which new store openings cannibalise traffic from existing locations. Initially, chains expand into prime central areas with high turnover, while in the later stages smaller outlets are opened in less populated areas, reducing per store averages.”

Finally, she explains what could be causing the surge in delivery platform promotions: “Several factors could be driving the sharp increase in promotional activity on delivery platforms (93% growth in H1 2025), but most likely it reflects a perfect storm of economic pressure and platform strategy. With consumers more price-sensitive than ever, and competition among delivery apps intensifying, promotions have become the go-to lever for driving volume.”

As always, you can expect to see further roundups from Meaningful Vision throughout the year, highlighting the UK’s top hospitality trends. But please do shout if you’re in need of specific data between now and then and we’d be happy to support a story you’re working on.

About Meaningful Vision:

Meaningful Vision is a leading provider of market intelligence data for the hospitality industry, offering insights into pricing, promotions, locations, and traffic data for the UK, Ireland, France and Germany markets. The company solution is a unique combination of big datasets, modern technologies such as machine learning and AI and industry expertise and data analysis competences. Analysing the behaviour of 10M consumers in the UK and more than 500K price points items during a year, the Meaningful Vision solution empowers companies to assess their market performance relative to competitors and identify avenues for growth. For more information, visit www.meaningfulvision.com.